Family Sues Phone Company Over Ad

DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas family has sued Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.

The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing Web site, and failed to credit by name the photographer who took the photo.

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The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken at an April church car wash by Alison's youth counselor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison's brother, Damon. In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, "Dump your pen friend," over Alison's picture.

The ad also says "Free text virgin to virgin" at the bottom.

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People who post photos on Flickr are asked how they want to license their attribution. The person who posted the photo of Chang chose a sharing license from Creative Commons that allows others to reuse work such as photos without violating copyright laws, if they credit the photographer and say where the photo was taken.

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Poking fun at Paris leads to a lawsuit for Hallmark

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — "That's hot." A lawsuit says that's Paris Hilton's remark.

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Hallmark Cards says it was just dishing up satire with a greeting card spoofing "Paris' First Day as a Waitress." There's a photo of Hilton's face superimposed on a cartoon waitress telling her customer, "Don't touch that, it's hot." The customer asks, "What's hot?" and the waitress says, "That's hot."

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Legally, the question isn't "What's hot?" but who owns the rights to "That's hot." A lawsuit against Hallmark, filed last week by the heiress, notes that the federal patent office in February issued to her a registered trademark on the term "That's hot" for its use in apparel.

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UC Berkeley, Stanford crack down on illegal downloading

College students beware: Universities are ratcheting up punishments for illegally downloading music and video from your dorm rooms this school year in an effort to tamp down the popular pastime.

Stanford University and UC Berkeley are among schools that have added teeth to their policies to make students think twice about violating copyright laws. The hope, in part, is to keep students from being sued by Hollywood studios, which consider online piracy a threat to their business and are sparing little expense to track down people who illicitly share songs, television shows and films.

The penalties are an acknowledgment by the schools that they have been largely ineffective at keeping students from online file-sharing services like Limewire, Ares and Gnutella, where music by top artists can be swapped for free.

Stanford started a program on Saturday that financially hits students who go astray. If students fail to remove illegal digital downloads from their computers within 48 hours of being asked to do so, the university will sever their campus Internet connections, and they will have to pay $100 to get them restored.

A second offense will require a $500 reconnection fee. A third infraction will cost students $1,000.

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