The Curious Case of the Dog on the Beach

This tale has, at its centre, a typical family. We shall call them the Pink Family. There’s mum, dad, two kids and their beautiful rescue dog, Biscuit. The Pink family live by the coast, and when the weather permits they like to make use of the beach hut they own, taking Biscuit along with them when the sands allow canine visitors.

The first chapter of our story begins 3 or 4 years ago, when Mr Pink had reason to venture to the big city on the train. He arrived at the station, stepped off the escalator, slid through the barriers and marched on to the station concourse where he was immediately and surprisingly confronted by a six foot photo of Biscuit up on the wall, positioned proudly amongst a selection of other destination images, all promoting the rail company on whose train Mr Pink had just travelled.

There was no question in his mind that the dog in the photo was Biscuit, the same white fur on his chest, and the same harness; his opinion was further reinforced by the fact that the background of the image was quite clearly the view Mr Pink had sat and enjoyed many times from a deck chair in front of his beach hut. Keen to understand how a photo of their dog had made its way into a rail company’s library of marketing assets and onto the wall of a major international railway station, Mr and Mrs Pink began to make enquiries. They contacted the station and received a generic response that they were not responsible for the content of any marketing collateral. Enquiries to the rail company were similarly unproductive as the only methods for complaint seemed to centre on ticketing issues, and late or cancelled trains.

Fast forward to October 2025, and it is now Mrs Pink who is travelling on a train. She climbs aboard, finds a seat, looks up, and there beaming back at her from one of the onboard posters is Biscuit. The same photo that had been used at the station a couple of years previously. 

With a renewed determination to get to the bottom of things, Mr and Mrs Pink manage to make contact with one of the marketing managers at the rail company. They fired off an email to see if the marketing team were able to shed any light on how the photo came into use and why nobody had bothered to ask if they minded.

The below is taken from the response issued by their customer service team:

“We take issues relating to privacy and the use of images very seriously. With this in mind, we've raised your comments with both our Marketing and Legal teams. They have advised that as the photograph was taken on public land, there is no legal requirement to secure permission. They clarified there is no legal requirement for the organisation to sign a release with the dog’s owners in this matter or agree payment for the use of the photo.

They confirmed that we sourced the photo through a professional photographer. However, they have assured us that we will not use this photo in any marketing materials that we produce in the future.”

Mr and Mrs Pink followed up to ask who the photographer was; after all even though the rail company has removed the photo from their asset library doesn’t mean that the image is not being licensed for use elsewhere does it? The case was escalated to a senior member of the customer service team. They reported back that they had conducted a full review, and concluded: ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, we’re not going to say who the photographer was, we’re not using the image anymore, we’re sorry for any upset, but you can contact the rail ombudsman if you are not happy’. So the Pinks contacted the ombudsman.

The ombudsman replied to say something along the lines of “err, we deal with operational stuff on the railways, this is not something we know anything about, soz an’ all that, but we can’t help you.” Not their exact words, but it sums up the reply pretty accurately. And that’s where we are now.

Where does that leave us? With a load more questions really. I’ll leave it to you dear reader to think about what the answers are, and to consider what you would do if you were the Pink family, or the marketing team for the rail company, or the photographer. 

So…

1. Should the photographer have obtained permission via a release if he was planning to licence the image or fulfilling a commercial contract?

2. Should the rail company have requested a release if they were the ones that commissioned the shoot and intended to use the photo for commercial purposes? 

3. If we just say “It’s only a dog, what’s the problem” does the whole thing go away?

4. OK, the photo was taken in a public place, but if it was one of the Pink children in the photo that would have been different, right?

5. Was the rail company’s response appropriate, and how much damage does this do to their reputation?

For what it’s worth, my observations on the situation are that irrespective of the legal position, in dealing with this at least five people from the rail company and the ombudsman will have spent a fair few hours investigating and responding to the Pink family’s questions. And at the end of all that, the family have not had their questions answered and also now hold a very negative view of the rail company.

Just one simple release would have avoided all of that. 

It’s probably best to leave the final word to Biscuit, so here he is in the picture that started the whole saga. I do have a release signed by Mrs Pink, but I don’t have a license from either the photographer or the rail company to publish this photo. If either would like to get in touch, I’m happy to discuss this, and also to offer you a discount on an imageRelease subscription.