Companies Stealing Influencers’ Faces

Companies Stealing Influencers’ Faces
Short Title	Fast Fashion Companies Are Using Influencers' Faces For Marketing Without Persmission
Location	Global
Date	2020
Taxonomy	Appropriation
Information	Physical Characteristics, Identifying
Threat Actors	Fast fashion sellers
Individuals
Affected	Influencers
High Risk Groups	Celebrities
Secondary Consequences

Images of Influencers are often stolen by companies to sell other people’s products.

Description

As influencer marketing has grown in popularity over the past years image theft has became a problem for many Instagreammers and YouTubers. Influencers often complain about companies (often fast fashion companies) copying their looks and using their photos (often with their faces cropped out) to sell cheap knockoffs. This is an example of Appropriation.

It happened to YouTuber Bernadette Banner, who makes historical sewing videos. She found that a fast fashion company was advertising one of her dresses—a 15th century gown she had copied from a painting and hand-sewn over the course of over 250 hours—with her (headless) image for $40.98, which is not even half of her materials cost.

Sources

https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-instagram-influencers-stolen-faces/