Well, here's an interesting one. Pepsi Cola are trying to stop the media from printing a somewhat embarrassing print advert which shows all the top footballers they sponsor, including
David Beckham and Thierry Henry, about to be engulfed by a very large wave.
The ad was part of a planned Pepsi ad campaign which would see the top footballers in surf gear alongside some very high waves
- an ad campaign which, needless to say, has been pulled due to subsequent world events. However the print ad had already been sent out to the media in Norway where one newspaper published it. The Daily Star got its hand on the pic and they published it over here too.
Pepsi are now threatening to sue the two papers in question for breach of copyright, and have sent strict legal letters to all other national newspapers telling them: "The copyright of this photograph is owned by PepsiCo. PepsiCo has not consented to publication of this photograph and has taken steps against the
Daily Star in relation to the unauthorised publication of the photographs. We have not authorised the photograph out of concern for the tsunami disaster victims and we will be grateful if you ensure that your newspaper doesn't publish the photograph.
We trust that now we have notified you of our concerns that no such publication will take place."
While
Pepsi was undoubtedly right to pull the ad campaign, it will be interesting to see how their claims of copyright breach against those papers who have published the picture really stack up, given that the photo was sent to the Norwegian papers with the explicit hope that they would publish it, thus giving the drinks company some free advertising. Meantime you can check out the picture for yourself at ad industry weblog http://www.ad-rag.com.