A Family Christmas Card

A U.S. family learned that their family photo was taken from the internet and used in Prague to advertise a business. This could be in violation of the copyright law because the owner of the business did not request any type of permission to use a photo to advertise his business and essentially make money off the photo.

The Copyright law would essentially protect the person who took the photo. Assuming that the photographer gave the rights to the Smiths to do with their photo as they please, then it would be lawful for the Smiths to put the image on the internet. When the store owner used the photo on the internet he would be in copyright violation because he did not have permission from the photographer who owns the photo.

This would be good for the Smiths, so that their family was not publicly on display across the world. The cons to this would be that the store owner could face penalties because he was making a profit off of someone else's work. Section 113 of the copyright law would prevent anyone from using and making  a profit off of an image that they did not create. In the business perspective this would be illegal.

In an educational perspective, it would be legal if students were to use the Smiths' photo in a report or school project. Hobbs shows this in Resource B. Hobbs describes that the Copyright Act of 1976, Section 107, also known as the fair use doctrine, would allow for things to be used as long as they won't make a big effect on the market for the original use and the purpose of the use would be different. This is different from the business perspective because the students would not be using an image to make a profit. The students would be using the image in an educational way.

From my perspective, it was good that the business owner took the image off of his business. I think he was in violation of copyright laws that the photographer would be protected by. The photographer could have taken action and sued the business, but I think that because the business owner took down the image, and that was what the family wanted, they were able to settle the dispute outside of the courtroom.