Kenyan entrepreneur Suzie Wokabi, chief executive officer (CEO) of Suzie Beauty Cosmetics, is suing IT giant Microsoft for using her images for advertisements on billboards without her consent.
The Standard reports the photos had been given to Muthoni Njomba, a makeup artist and entrepreneur, who in turn gave them to Microsoft’s advertising agency.
“Muthoni approached me a year ago and asked whether she could use my son and I as models for her artwork. She got a professional photographer who took photos of my hands and my son’s foot,” Wokabi told Heads Up.
“I was shocked when my husband told me that he had seen the same photo on a Microsoft billboard accompanied by the words ‘Art Deeper with Windows 8’.”
Through her lawyers Kittony and Waiyaki Advocates, Wokabi wants “a declaration that her constitutional right to property was violated by Microsoft, an order for compensation for general damages and compensation for being used as models, taking into account her celebrity status, recognisability and reputation”.
Njomba has since denied allegations she sold the photos to Microsoft.
“I really don’t understand what went wrong because even so, the photographer had the rights to do whatever he wanted with the photos,” Muthoni told Heads Up.
Microsoft is yet to comment on the matter.
