Is this legal?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>For my school newspaper I decided to write an article about how stupid teenagers are on facebook. So, I went on google and found a picture of a girl who looked about 13 years old. I then went on gmail and made up a new email. I created a facebook account for a teenage girl who is a member of my school's network. The profile pic I found on google doesn't have anyone tagged in it, it is just set as the default so I don't think that would violate any laws? I friended every person at my school's middle and upper school (only 316 students) who had a facebook. In less than 24 hours I have 187 friends. On top of that I've gotten probably 20 friend requests from various people. I've gotten probably 10-20 messages asking who I was. Many of the people who asked me had already accepted my friend request. Now I'm planning on writing an article about the whole incident but before I do I want to make sure I can't get arrested and/or sued for this. Is this legal?</p>

2

<p>Is the picture public domain or explicitly released under some kind of special license? If not, it’s not legal. A good place to find public domain pictures is the Wikimedia Commons. Chances are you won’t be sued (people use copyrighted profile pictures all the time) but you’re treading on shaky legal ground. Even if it is released under a special license, you may be required to attribute the photo to the original creator.</p>

<p>I don’t know about the legality of the rest of it, though…</p>

3

<p>Okay so I find a pic on wikipedia commons and perhaps put the URL as the caption?</p>

4

<p>It’s very shaky. She is a minor and hasn’t given you explicit permission to use her picture. I wouldn’t do it just to be safe. It’s not worth it.</p>

<p>I work at a photography company and parents sign something on our forms to give us permission to use their child’s picture.</p>

5

<p>Maybe I’ll just use a pic of my sister or something, that would be easier.</p>

6

<p>How would you feel if someone plucked your picture out of nowhere and wrote a story using your picture?
What if the story said you were a criminal, thief, or worse?
You shouldn’t use any information that someone could use to identify the girl, even if you do not use her picture.
Don’t.</p>

7

<p>Yeah, that’s probably easier and more ethical. You wouldn’t want someone to secretly use a picture of you to prove an insulting point about people like you, would you? Don’t do it to someone else without permission. And good luck with your project, by the way; it sounds really interesting!</p>

8

<p>Thanks! I hope it works out. For now I just have “this image requires a fbook gold account” pics until I figure something else out.</p>

9

<p>I wouldn’t do it. Although your experiment was brilliant. I think you should use a picture of someone closer. Like your sister or brother and tell them. Since you didn’t get the random girls permission, you shouldn’t use it.</p>

<p>Even if it’s a caption from Wikipedia, it still has the potential to blow up into a bigger issue.</p>

10

<p>Or you could just not use a picture, or a picture of someone you know is a pose such that you can’t see any identifying characteristics.</p>

11

<p>ahaha, nice. i would re-do the whole thing using a picture of a cousin or some one who doesn’t live in the area so no one would recognize him/her.</p>

12

<p>Brilliant idea. I’m using my 13 year old cousin.</p>

13

<p>^^Yea. Your results are skewed right now even if you put in a picture of your sister. </p>

<p>You should just redo it with another picture.</p>

14

<p>Make a composite picture, don’t use your innocent cousin.</p>

15

<p>You could just use a picture of a flower or a stick figure.</p>

16

<p>I asked my cousin and she is letting me use this picture of the back of her head. I think this will be a win. 60% of my school is friends with a person who doesn’t exist. Also a win.</p>

17

<p>You could use a picture that doesn’t have a person in it. My first FB profile pic was this picture: <a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CLZqDSz-luA/SxQLoUuEGDI/AAAAAAAAAGk/0fquHCpbgMs/s1600/Reading+in+Stylish.jpg[/url]”>http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CLZqDSz-luA/SxQLoUuEGDI/AAAAAAAAAGk/0fquHCpbgMs/s1600/Reading+in+Stylish.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
My next one was a picture of a Nike T-shirt that says “Your lack of skills just makes me sad.” Then a snow angel that I had made. You really don’t have to put people in pictures.</p>