ST Article: Singer fails in bid to stop use of bridal pics

[oracle0711]

Not sure if this has been posted in CS but this appeared in the Straits Times today. Thought it would be an interesting read and that it might be useful as a guide to "taking pictures in public and using them)...

Singer fails in bid to stop use of bridal pics
Court rejects plea for injunction against bridal salon till hearing of suit
By K C Vijayan, Law Correspondent

CANTOPOP singer Rosanne Wong has failed in a legal bid to stop a Singapore bridal shop from using pictures of her wearing its dresses.

The 32-year-old, who is one half of Hong Kong group 2R, was lent the gowns for her pre-wedding shoot in London. In return, she gave the bridal salon's owner a DVD of the pictures.

But when the shop started using them to publicise itself at wedding exhibitions, she accused it of breaching her privacy and copyright. She applied for an injunction to stop the salon from using the shots until a full hearing can take place.

The High Court has now turned down her application, saying the case had more to do with money than privacy. It added that she appeared to have given her consent for the pictures to be used.

The Malaysia-born singer, who has appeared in several Hong Kong movies and TV shows, was given seven wedding gowns and two suits by The Feline Bridal in River Valley Road.

After returning from London, she gave the DVD of the shots to salon owner Rachel Wang. In January 2010, she went back to the shop after her Hong Kong wedding to a dentist to find it had produced a coffee-table book for its customers containing her photographs.

A month later, the salon used the pictures at its booth at a wedding show in VivoCity. Last year, Ms Wang displayed her photographs again at a bridal exhibition in Changi Expo.

The singer then sued for breach of privacy and copyright at a district court. She argued that her image was valuable, saying she received $85,000 a year in publicity endorsements. Ms Wong sought $10,000 for each of the 30 shots used in the album in her suit.

She applied for the interim injunction to bar Ms Wang from using her photographs. When this failed in the district court, she appealed to the High Court, where she was again unsuccessful.

Justice Choo Han Teck pointed out that she had agreed to hand the DVD of the photo shoot to Ms Wang. It also took her more than a year to sue.

'The photographs were taken for (Ms Wong) in public and similar shots could have been taken by bystanders and posted on social media,' Justice Choo said in his judgment grounds yesterday.

'In the present circumstances, the photographs in question might be personal, but were not as private as counsel argued. (Her) grievance in this case was more a pecuniary matter than a matter of loss of privacy.' The judge added that there was no need to temporarily order the shop to stop using the pictures until a full hearing can be held.

This was because if the singer won her case, the damages she would receive would be adequate compensation.

Yesterday, Ms Wang, who was defended by Mr Soman Premchand, said that the ruling 'is such a relief'. 'We felt hurt when the suit was started.'

Ms Wong's lawyer, Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng, said: 'Our client is disappointed the application has failed but she intends to vigorously pursue the main suit.'

The Straits Times

 

[sjackal]

Facts unclear thus far; without knowing what was in their agreement or not in, we don't know who's who.

But the fact that she gave bridal shop the CD implies permission.

 

[snappy55]

Nowadays, many business deploy underhanded tactics in their sales push. They lay all kinds of traps for the unsuspecting victims. Bridal studios, as I have discovered yesterday, are among the worst culprits.

My son signed up a package for $3800, with Bliss Bridal at Vivocity, which included an indoor and an outdoor photo shoot. When the shooting completed yesterday, the studio came up with a bill for an additional $14,000/=. Fourteen thousand dollars! no joke.

When the package was selected, we were shown albums that had 5 photos per page. Now, after the shooting, the studio refused to recognise that, and said one page has only 1 photo, and demanded ( I should say, extorted) $95 per photo, plus $2000 for the DVD copy.

What a rip-off ! CS members should beware of this Black Shop at Vivocity

 

[sjackal]

I heard about the $95 per photo thing from bridal shops. Its usually not mentioned during the sales process, the package price might include the album base cost, but did not include the 'per photo used' cost. Buying the DVD is like buying over the copyright of the images, which they sell for $2000. All these charges are reasonable - ONLY if they were clearly stated during the sales process. Otherwise is a gross misrepresentation.

Also in a way fortunate, exactly because of their shady and force sales method, that we freelancers are able to compete with them on basis of integrity and openness.

 

[agape01]

By the fact that the Malaysian Pop Star had turned over a DVD with full resolution images would also mean that she is also giving consent for the bridal shop to use those images. However, the question was her intent and with statue of limitations which she took so long to file a lawsuit against the bridal shop, shows that she didn't really care too much about her copyright.

At the same time, the following practice is also pretty much the standard however, the terms were stated out right from the start.

A wedding photographer normally goes through about 2000+ images when covering a wedding. What normally happens is that the photog would declare that the wedding album would be designed with more pages than what the original package was signed by the couple. Let's say the couple signed for a 30+ pages, but the photog designs 50+. The idea is to sell more pages and to make the layout so good that it is near impossible not to have those extra pages. So in the end, the bride would be in a dilemma on whether she wants those extra pages or not. Its a good marketing tactic as the terms were stated out from the start.