Photo: “That’s a mighty big puppy dog you have there…” A portrait of two ladies and their pet dog on the beach, Pacific Grove, California.
Associated Press reported yesterday in their “Unusual News” category on a woman who has filed a lawsuit aginst Getty Images for selling a photo of her and her beloved pooches to a pooches and pets crematorium. The basis for the lawsuit is her mental anguish over a portrait of her and her now past pups being used in such a morbid manner. We know from past cases that obscene, defamatory, and pornographic uses have been held in the models favor. Now I guess we’ll have to wait and see how “morbid” stands the legal lithmus test. Further troubling the matter is that long ago, before Getty ever got the image, it was originally snapped by what the lady describes as an amateur photographer. Nothing specific tells us whether there was ever even a model release.
Now I love pets as much as the next person, and I’ve owned cats, dogs, fish, and hamsters. Heck, even my yard is running amok with pet Black Widows. If this was a picture of me with one of my pets, sure, I might be taken aback for a moment. But with my sick and twisted sense of Black Humor, I’d probably just try to imagine my beloved pet bathed in pineapple and BBQ Sauce, have a bit of an odd cuckle over the whole matter, and move on. Maybe the 3 Million Dollars in damages she’s claiming is keeping her from moving on?
They named Getty in the suit because of their deep pockets, but in fact only the end user of the image is responsible.