Strip Club Cases Show How Little Your Image Is Protected Online

Imagine finding that a strip club is using the bikini pictures you posted to social media from your beach vacation to promote its end-of-summer party.

What could you do about it, legally?

Under intellectual property law, unless your image is worth something to the marketplace, the answer might be nothing.

A group of professional models has had only mixed success in suing strip clubs and similar establishments across the country for using their images in social media ads, even though none of the clubs had permission to use the pictures. In one case, the club admitted to finding them through ...