Cleveland Home & Flower Show Uses Image of Ireland’s Famed Powerscourt Gardens
A customer of mine, Babin Building Solutions, is participating in the 2009 Cleveland Home & Flower Show and just for fun I went to the website to take a look.
What caught my eye — almost immediately — was the fact that the image used for the “General Information” menu item was of Ireland’s Powerscourt Garden. Most people wouldn’t notice this, but I did. I was there just 2 years ago, and the unique layout of the garden/walkway set against the unforgettable mountainscape is not something you fail to recognize.
This lead me to question whether it was appropriate for the Home & Flower Show to utilize this image, and more to the point legally, if they’re even authorized to use it. Did the person who built this website take that picture? Did the person who built this website acquire the picture from a stock photography suite? Did they steal it from Powerscourt’s website or another source? Does Powerscourt need to authorize the use of pictures taken of its property if they’re to be used commercially? And, of perhaps less import, does it hinder the advancement of the Home & Flower Show’s mission, which is presumably to advocate the gardens built and maintained here in Ohio. Surely an image of some magnificent garden locally would be better than using an image of gardens thousands of miles away in a country that has no real connection to Ohio.
Of course the benefit of the doubt has to play a role here as it always does. Chances are that the Home & Flower Show does have the right to use the image. Chances are they were simply interested in making their menu look cool by using a picture of a really cool garden. Chances are no one in Ohio (save for me) will even notice this and comment on it.
But, I couldn’t let it go without giving Powerscourt the props it rightly deserves. It’s an amazing place with perfect architectural landscaping, pristinely manicured lawns, hundreds of species of flora and a number of fountains/ponds that stop you in your tracks. I’d like to see a garden like that in Ohio… if it exists.