Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

There's a law against someone using your image and likeness for commercial purposes. It's called the Right of Publicity. However, posting a photo on Facebook doesn't necessarily mean that the posting was done for commercial/advertising purposes. Sticking the photo on a product for sale is more akin to a "commercial purpose".

It doesn't appear that you are the copyright holder of the photo either (the photographer is), so you aren't likely to have a copyright claim to persuade Facebook to delete the photo from the other person's page per the DMCA act.

Sorry.

tma

First of all, God bless you for being sufficiently attractive that everyone wants a copy of your photo. In California, the right of publicity extends to the right not to have your name and likeness misappropriated for commercial purposes. There was just a California Supreme Court decision in the "Tasters Choice Coffee" case in which a large coffee manufacturer used a photo of a model sipping coffee without his being paid nor his authorizing the use of his likeness. I imagine you could persuade whoever is distributing your photo to stop, if you can find them. Watch out for legal time limits.

It's a tort, similar to negligence or trespass, to invade someone's privacy by excessive and unnecessary display of their likeness. It's another tort to use someone's likeness for profit, like using it to illustrate a peach-crate label. The difficulty is that suing someone for such conduct is not financially rewarding, even to a successful plaintiff, unless you can plead, prove and collect damages in excess of your costs. Of course, you can put a stop to the displays (if you can identify the defendant(s)), but is it worth it?