Interesting to see how social media can push a simple story into mainstream news: after blogging (here post #1 and post #2) and tweeting about what happened to Elaine’s picture, the China Daily picked up the story. A journalist did some further research this week and to my big surprise the story appeared on today’s front page of the China Daily!
The full article in China’s leading nationwide English paper is here: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-10/29/content_14000038.htm
Interesting is that the research results are different from what we expected. The company hired a freelancer who illegally used Elaine’s picture (he assumed she would be living thousands of miles away). He said he found the picture on a designers website, a website we had never used and certainly had never uploaded pictures to. The freelancer did not have permission to take pictures from the site, but did it anyway.
When we checked this website we found tens of professional pictures of Scott and Elaine, likely uploaded by the photo studio where we took the pictures. This part of the story was not included in the article, but it shows that you have to watch out with photo studios in China. We used one of the best studios and still it looks like they cheated us by uploading the pictures to a website used by designers. Let that be a warning to others using photo studios here.
To be continued? Not sure, if I had nothing else to do I might go after the photo studio, but I guess I have more important things to do. It’s certainly nice to see some justice done by this front page article.
I am a Dutch entrepreneur in Shanghai who has lived and worked over 12 years in China. Co-founder of among others Tudou.com and unitedstyles.com, advisor to Spil Games for which I set up and led the Asian operation (2006-2011), and angel investor in Chinese Internet and tech start-ups. Married to Grace, with whom I have a son (Scott) and a daughter (Elaine). These are my personal views and do not necessarily represent the companies I am involved with. You can reach me at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com
4 Responses to “Elaine’s story on front page of today’s China Daily”
[...] Picture Removed from Halloween Products — The Chinese Way! Part 3 (added 10/30/11): Elaine’s Story on Front Page of China Daily. The China Daily reporter did some investigative research on the case. The manufacturer, [...]
I’m glad to see that the reporter did some extra research. I’m not surprised that the China Daily picked it up, since they love foreign holidays. I linked to your posts in my silly list of DOs and DON’Ts for celebrating Halloween through business: http://www.leslieforman.com/2011/10/the-dos-and-donts-of-combining-business-and-halloween/
Hope this experience hasn’t ruined Halloween for your family!
@leslie Saw your article pop up in my Google Alerts already, thanks for the mention. The experience doesn’t ruin our Halloween, it’s just part of living in China
[...] don’t regularly read the China Daily, except when Elaine is featured on the front page or when Air China has no other English papers available. Today’s headline confirms why I stay [...]