My aunt forwarded the Motion newsletter by Virgin Active to myself last week, with a cropped edited version of myself in a copy righted Rich Cruse photo from Xterra USA Finals at Lake Tahoe. I can only believe the photo, for South African media at least, was taken from my blog post in January, before a sloppy photoshop effort at eliminating branding off my race kit.
(A snippet of the newsletter)
I know very little on the legal rights for context such as this, and imagine first and foremost Rich Cruse has been crossed, thereafter Jeep Apparel and USN, and lastly, myself and peers who get knocked by such violation of images by degrading of advertising integrity by us as athletes.
Below the original image:
Photo by Rich Cruse
On a more positive media front, a great article in the South African Runners World March Edition, on the Totalsports Challenge:
Please, I would gladly hear your thoughts regarding the Virgin Active newsletter, or any insights you may have. So please log on and leave a comment.
4 Responses to "Virgin Active – Visual Abuse"
You get some who play ball and then some who mess it up for everyone! It prob took some convincing on your part to get the shot from Rich and to see it abused is a shame. This is not on! Unfortunately as an athlete we have too little time and money to take people like this to task. Take it as a compliment they wanty to use your shot and even more a compliment you are so well branded the need to edit it!
Dan, I think you should send them an email and ask for their comments/apology would be nice too. What a cheek! love the Aunt x
Burn them at the stake! I’m sure they get away with this a lot, they knew what they were doing.
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