Footballer Frank Ribery to sue CNN for $1.5m over image rights infringement with cryotherapy photo
France and Bayern Munich midfielder Franck Ribery is
seeking $1.5 million in damages from US cable news channel CNN for using
his image in a story about the death of a woman in a cryotherapy
chamber, his lawyer said on Friday.
CNN ran a story last month,exactly on October 28 about the
death of Chelsea Ake-Salvacion, a 24-year-old American woman who was
found dead in a cryotherapy tank in a Nevada spa.
CNN used a photo showing Franck Ribery's head while the
footballer used a similar machine, which many high-level sportsmen often
do. An error on the cable network's part, as they immediately
took down the picture and post but that was not enough to stop people
from noticing.
"It results from this publication that the photograph of
Mr. Franck Ribery has been associated to a woman's death related to the
cryotherapy treatment," Ribery's lawyer Carlo Alberto Brusa said.
"Mr. Franck Ribery, a world-famous professional soccer
player and former member of the France national soccer team, has never
given his permission and consent to the use of this photograph -- and
therefore of his image -- related to the aforesaid publication."
Brusa said the use of the photo was an "illegal
association, which constitutes an infringement of the personality rights
and the French image right, is a wrongdoing for which you are
responsible and which obliges you to repair all the damages suffered by
Mr. Franck Ribery and his family following this morbid publication and
the public reactions provoked".
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