Personal Information used without permission

[GAtransfer]

When I was in college in the late 90's, I studied Corporate Communication, and one of my assignments was to write both an electronic resume and a formatted resume. My professor thought that my resume was very well done, so he posted it to his website as a "Best Practices" resume for his future students to use as an example. Recently, I discovered that my electronic resume, complete with my name, work history, organizations, schools, past address & phone number, and even an E-mail address that I still use today has been published by a lady in a Communication textbook. She changed a few of the dates, but most of the resume is exactly like I submitted in 1999 and my life during the late 90's is now published for the world to see!

I was wondering if there is anything that I could do about this. Am I subject to any royalties or do I have a case because my personal information has been published in a book? This resume was not copyrighted, but it is my life. What can/should I do?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Hmmm... this is a good question. I have no idea why your professor, who is an expert on corporate communication, would even think about using your real resume with actual name, contact information and work history. Have you spoken to your professor about this? You may well have a "case" regarding the unauthorized use but let's think practically. You had a good relationship with this professor and the use might have been unintentional. You'd like to continue to have a good relationship and vice versa. Considering that you had no problem with the publishing of your information on the web, I'd venture to say you've suffered "less" damages. Considering the amount of royalties on the textbook, of which your resumes consists of a very small part, don't think there is a big windfall here. If it were me, I'd open up a negotiation and see what you can arrange but have a good idea of what you want, e.g. your name and contact info changed on all future editions of the book and some compensation to change your contact information and inconvenience, etc. Best of luck to you and hopefully your former professor might help you in other ways in order to "make it up to you." I'd like to believe in the best of intentions and here it's my impression that there was no malice...

 

[GAtransfer]

The problem is that I'm not sure if my professor was even involved. The lady who wrote the book and used my resume is someone I don't even know. She is the one who used all my personal information without my permission and published it in a book. I did not care that my resume was on my professor's website for his students to use as an example, but I do care that my E-mail address and personal info. is now published in a book by a lady I have never even heard of! Thanks so much for your time and your response!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Ahhh... that's a different story. Do you think that this third party may have copied your resume of your professor's web site without his knowledge or authorization? It would seem that is the case! If it were me I'd write an angry letter and demand some compensation too. It's one thing to be placed on a web site that can be taken down as easily as it was put up. It's another to print your personal information - without your knowledge - and sell it in a textbook that will have many thousands of copies distributed! Either the author or her publisher should have made sure that the resume information was fictional and changed some items to make sure. There is virtually no chance of coincidence with all the factors being accurate and I'd say that the origin is clear. First though, I'd want to talk to my professor and make sure that it wasn't provided voluntarily. Best of luck to you and let us know how things turn out.