Please help. Advise on recent cases needed. Someone has taken and used a picture of mine without my...?

Question

... permission or legal right to do so on a mobile phone chat application. Now my picture of me is on her profile titled as her own pic when it is not and she does not have my consent for this. I will be contacting my solicitor in the morning but for now need as many useful suggestions as possible as to what to do now. I want to find out about similar cases in the UK so that I can be prepared. Thank you if you can help me.

Answer 1

It is perfectly legal to take pictures in a public place, never forget anything you put on the net can be accessed by anyone.

However using your image for fraudulent purposes is illegal, if you think you have been libelled you can sue but that will cost a huge amount.

Answer 2

Lucky for you, British law tends to be more to your advantage on that type of case than American law (which I studied).

If she is putting you in a false light, which from the description it sounds like she may be, then you might have a cause of action if a reasonable person would find her use of the picture objectionable.

It doesn't matter whether she took the picture without permission unless she also invaded your privacy, such as in your home, a dressing room, bathroom stall, etc. If she did invade your privacy, that might be a separate cause of action.

All this is according to a majority of US states' common law, which is based on English common law, so the concepts should be similar, but could be different if developed later in history.

However, it will be very annoying to your solicitor if you go in and tell him/her all this, because he/she is the expert and does not need research help from clients. If he/she is unable to communicate clearly to you regarding the theory of your case, or you don't trust that his/her research is accurate, you may want to find a more reliable solicitor. You pay them to do the work, remember? Just work on clearly presenting every relevant fact to your solicitor and he/she will be very happy with you.  

Answer 3

A picture of yours?  You mean you took (or produced) a picture of some kind and she took it and is using it commercially?  That would be copyright infringement, and could result in damages being due.

Or do you mean a picture of YOU?  If that photo was taken in a public place, you are due nothing for its use. If she took it, it belongs to her, not to you.

Edit:  on your additional info, it seems you have a point, this image would be your property (assuming you can prove it's yours, not that easy to do).  But I suppose you could sue if you have nothing but time and money.  Your problem will be showing damages, since there are none.  So you could spend a LOT of time and money suing, but it's very unlikely you'll get anything for it.

Answer 4

It is legally copywrited as long as you have the negative! That is unless she picked it up in public domain where you may have placed it!

At least that is British Common Law!