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Choc shock as ex-child wins face-off action

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

Following the earlier saga of Russell Christoff's claim against Nestlé USA for wrongful face-lift, here's another face case, this time from Israel. This information comes from Monday's issue of Israel Today.

The story, loosely translated from the original Hebrew and rotated from right-to-left for ease of reading, involves one Roi Kroyotoro, who maintained that his image had been displayed on jars of Chocolit cocoa powder, a product by the Strauss Group, for the past decade. "Everyone Calls Me Cocoa", he complained. The Strauss Group has now been forced to cease using his image, following an order by Jerusalem District Court Judge Josef Shapiro. Strauss has been given three months in which to dispose of existing stock.

Kroyotoro, who is now a soldier, was photographed for Chocolit's purposes a decade earlier, when he was a minor. His parents received a one-time payment of 3,520 New Shekels [about 650 Euros at today's rate] from Elite, with which Strauss subsequently merged. There was no written contact. After his request for removal of the portrait was refused, Kroyotoro sued for 5 million Shekels [about 920,000 Euros at today's rate]. Straus claimed that Kroyotoro sold the right to use his image in perpetuity. The judge disagreed: the use of the image was granted for a reasonable time only, and that time had clearly passed.

Full post as published by IPKat on August 27, 2009 (boomark / email).