Saturday, June 13, 2009
When Danielle Smith of O’Fallon, Missouri, started blogging and posting on social networking sites, the last thing she expected was to find her family’s image hawking the services of a grocery store in the Czech Republic. But that’s the situation the television reporter-turned-mom has on her hands today, wondering what to do about a family photo taken off the Internet and blown up so large that it fills up the front window of Grazie, an “ecological supermarket” located in Prague.
Smith might never have known about the unauthorized use of the photo, which shows a smiling Smith, her husband and two children, had it not been for an old college classmate now living in the Czech Republic. The friend recognized Smith when he saw the enlarged image in the Grazie window and contacted her through Facebook.
Smith told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the ordeal has been difficult to process. “You go from having a mommy website to finding your picture 5,000 miles away. It was both a little flattering and a little creepy.”
She has discussed the incident on her blog, Extraordinary Mommy, which has produced considerable feedback—some supportive, and some downright nasty. “I’ve been called names I hadn’t heard in years,” Smith wrote in one entry, which included asking people why they felt compelled to tell her “my husband is the unluckiest guy in the world because he got ’stuck’ with me,” or that her children are ugly, or that she was a “moron” for not knowing her photo could be stolen and misused by others.
Smith has not contacted the Czech grocer about the photo, and isn’t even sure about how to proceed. Not being a litigious family, the Smiths have not pursued legal action.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Mommy Blogger Family Photo Swiped, Used for Czech Grocery Store Ad (by Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
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