Model sues after her likeness is in ad with headline: "I am HIV positive"

A Brooklyn resident has filed suit against the giant stock-photo company after she found that she had become the poster child of HIV, quite literally.

Avril Nolan, 25, has filed a $450,000 lawsuit against Getty Images in Manhattan Supreme Court, the suit alleges that Getty are improperly allowing her image to be used in these advertisements.

The ads sender is the state Division of Human Rights, who bought the image from Getty.

Avril Nolan says she posed for the photograph taken by Jena Cumbo years ago but that Jena has "had no written release or authorization to use or sell the image". Why she hasn't sued the photographer is probably spelled "money".

NYPost has more details, including irrelevant ones like Nolan was not in a committed relationship at the time of these ads appearing, so that we can conclude they may have ruined her dating potential, which also spells money of she wins this case. Getty seem to have messed up somewhere, if they have actually sold the image for more than it was released for as the photographer says she never gave Getty a release either, and that the image was originally used for a Magazine tutorial. Interesting. No releases signed, editorial use only, and suddenly it's sold for an ad. This does indeed spell money.

“Feeling humiliated and embarrassed, [Nolan] was forced to confess to her bosses that her image had been used in an advertisement for HIV services, implying that she was infected with HIV, in a newspaper often used by her own clients for advertising and that is distributed to tens of thousands of New Yorkers every day.”
The suit maintains Getty “never requested proof that [Nolan] had executed a legally enforceable and binding written model release.”
Cumbo described herself as an acquaintance of Nolan.
“I have been nothing but apologetic about how this happened,” Cumbo told The Post. “I never intended for her picture to be used in this way.”
Cumbo said that she never gave Getty a release and that the image was originally used for a magazine editorial.


Adgrunt Fairuse suggested on twitter, the possibility that the Flickr Gettyimages default upload may have been a way that the photographers work ended up at Getty, simply via Flickr.


Avril Nolan is a PR professional who graduated from the Dublin City University and has worked in Dublin, London and now New York city. She's currently working at a full-service, beauty, fashion and lifestyle public relations firm as senior account coordinator.

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Dolly87's picture

that is awful! her romantic life must be a mess and she is so pretty! I found more pics here
enewsdaily.net/avril-nolan-angry-model-in-hiv-positive-ads/

Dabitch's picture

Hi 'Tatiana Guzman', thanks for treating our site as a place for you to spam that link, like you have at every other article about this case.

The info on that link is almost a resume of the model; Avril Nolan from Dublin graduated, knows French etc - I see someone stalked her Linkedin profile. Some, but not all of the information, reflects her current Linkedin page accurately. So now we know both that she's single, and from Ireland, and that she's Senior Account Coordinator at Bollare in New York these days. Her current place of employment is listed incorrectly on your link.

Still, it doesn't tell us how a photo she did not sign a release for, ended up at Getty images. which would be the story.

AnonymousCoward's picture

Every news story I read about this lacks information on how Getty images got the photo from the photographer . It's clear that the Irish girl, who is a PR professional, is getting the news out spun to her favor. She's been working in New York City for the past four years, is not married, and it's not clear on what type of VISA she is working in the US on.

She might be related to a US citizen. Filing suits to win big chunks of money is the American way. But if were Getty's lawyers, that's the first thing I would inquire about.

Dabitch's picture

For the legal nerds, march 6 2014, motion to dismiss denied by judge Singh.