Chang v. Virgin Mobile USA, L.L.C.
United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
2009 WL 111570, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3051 (2009)
- Written by Eric Cervone, LLM
Facts
Virgin Mobile (Virgin) (defendant) was a company based in Australia. Virgin launched an advertising campaign in Australia that featured a collection of photos from Flickr, a public photo website. Alison Chang (plaintiff) was a resident of Texas who had her photo uploaded on Flickr. Chang’s photo had been uploaded by her church counselor, Wong, also a resident of Texas. Wong uploaded the photo under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which provides for the most unrestricted use available. Chang’s photo was found by Virgin on Flickr and used in Virgin’s Australia campaign. Virgin never used the advertisement incorporating Chang’s photo in the United States, and it never posted the photo on its website. Chang sued in Texas court. Virgin moved to dismiss the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction. Chang responded that the court had personal jurisdiction because of Virgin’s purposeful contacts with Flickr’s Texas servers.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Fitzwater, C.J.)
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