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Plaintiff v. Handmade Decoupage Products Manufacturer

October 2009

Sedgwick negotiated a resolution for our client, manufacturer of handmade decoupage products, in a $1 million case filed in federal court in California. Our client obtained the image of a boy from a publicly accessible website. Our client used the photo to gauge the fit of a photo and had the mockup version saved offline in a test file. Our client then finalized the frame and replaced the child’s image with that of a family member of the owner. A network outage occurred and when rebooted, the test file replaced the final version on the website and in a catalog. The boy’s father issued a cease and desist letter, applied for copyright registration and filed suit, arguing our client should pay for commercial use of the image as well as damage to the child's future in the entertainment industry. The case was settled for a nominal fee following a lengthy and contentious mediation.