SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) – Classmates.com faces a class action lawsuit in Seattle federal court that says it is using photographs of people from yearbooks without their permission.
Plaintiff Barbara Knapke filed her case through lawyers at Bursor & Fisher and Carson Noel on March 2. It alleges PeopleConnect Inc. has wrongly profited by using photographs of former students.
“Classmates provides free access to some of the personal information in its database to drive users to purchase its two paid products – reprinted yearbooks that retail for up to $99.95, and a monthly subscription to Classmates.com that retails for approximately $3 per month – and to get page views from non-paying users, from which Classmates profits by selling ad space on its website,” the suit says.
One aspect of the membership lets users “keep in touch” with other classmates.
“Classmates thus uses the identities of Plaintiff and the putative class to market its completely unrelated subscription services.”
The lawsuit cites the Ohio Right of Publicity law that states “a person shall not use any aspect of an individual’s persona for a commercial purpose.”