Ralph Lauren’s Abuse of DMCA Backfires
This Ralph Lauren ad 
has been making the rounds of the Internet and television, recently. The reason: Photo retouching to the point of absurdity, producing a supermodel (Filippa Hamilton) who looks more like a Bratz doll than a human being.
I am not raising this issue to jump into the debate about skinny models and self-esteem of girls and women, which is being addressed at length elsewhere. (Disclosure: I have a wife and two daughters.) I am more interested in a huge legal and business mistake that Ralph Lauren made.
As soon as criticisms appeared online, Ralph Lauren lawyers issued takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (See Terms of Use and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.)
