In the stampede to embrace all things social we have to understand that in the same way it enables people to expose more of their life to their friends, people are exposing more of their lives to strangers.
Meet the Smiths.
This is a photo they took for their family Christmas message that was sent out to friends via Christmas cards and a blog message.
Now look at this advert for a local grocery in Prague, Czech Republic.
It seems someone Googled something like ‘happy family’ , saw the Smiths and thought it made a great image.
Fortunately for the Smiths, they have a well-traveled assortment of friends, one of whom saw them in Prague and let them know. You can read the rest pf the story on the BBC site but the question here is one about permission. Increasingly, ‘copyright’ as a subject is being assaulted by the ‘democratisation’ of the web. Whilst many of us sit home and steal music, video and game entertainment at the expense of the large (and sometimes very small) corporates, suddenly we feel very unhappy when the shoe is on the other foot.*
Here’s a thought, instead of suing everyone, the corporations who are victims of piracy should download photos of the pirates and then use them for free in their advertising. 
*my legal disclaimer: I’m not implying the Smiths illegally download any content.
Tags czech illegal Illegal downloads marketing permission piracy prague smiths social media