What was scuba.com thinking?

[kensuf]

Several friends received an email with the following image in it:

It's one thing to randomly select from the Google Images page an image of a father and son diving for your advertising campaign, but at the very least you should check the copyright and background of the image.

For those of you unfamiliar with that image, it's the father and son that drowned cave diving on Christmas Day a couple of years back. Although they "dressed the part," neither of them were trained for cave diving, and the son was not even a certified diver.

Caves: A Christmas Day Tragedy

Epic Epic Fail.

 

[CptTightPants21]

WOW!
I recognized the photo immediately. That is a one huge f*ckup.

Are you sure this isn't a promotion from theonion?

 

[Jack Hammer]

Wow... that's something

 

[bamafan]

They are based out of California and an ow shop. I am guessing they Googled father son scuba and that image came up. It is definitely a screwup and one that I am sure they will be embarrassed to have made.

 

[atechdiver]

It doesn't matter where you are from. Using images you find on Google searches for commercial use without permission is unethical, and in several cases, the original photographer or owner of photos like this can collect damages for copyright infringement. This is clearly someone's personal photo, and undoubtedly, Scuba.com didn't get permission to use the photo.

 

[Bratface]

Obviously they were not thinking. I hope they finally realized who they were and took it down...along with sending an apology to the boy's mother.

 

[BoltSnap]

This is sooooo bad, it isn't funny. Most unprofessional of them. I live half way around the world from the US and I recognized the faces right away, I can't believe they didn't.

 

[kensuf]

Huh. Someone moved this from the forum I originally posted it in. Interesting that that was done without any notification of the matter.

 

[Reku]

Wow this is a huge screw up......huge. This is horrible.

 

[tridacna]

Huh. Someone moved this from the forum I originally posted it in. Interesting that that was done without any notification of the matter.

Where did you originally post?