Shoko beats big business

See the kid drinking chocolate milk on the left in the picture on the container of chocolate powder made by Elite?

he just sued Elite for using his image without due compensation. He won the court case and Elite is being forced to remove his picture within 6 months. He also sued for 5 million NIS when they initially refused to remove the picture, but I do not know if he was awarded the monetary compensation.

This kid is now a young man in the IDF and has had enough. he was initially paid 3520 NIS for participating in a photo shoot as an extra for a modeling agency. No agreement was signed, supposedly, for use of the picture, and since then his picture has adorned the Strauss-Elite can of chocolate powder for 10 years!

It started to bother him when he would be taunted in school, as kids gave him the nickname, it seems not an endearing one, "Shoko". The name stuck, some still call him "Shoko" it seems, and it still bothers him.

Clearly he never received due compensation for 10 years worth of advertising for a flagship product for a major company when he was paid 3520 NIS (about $800).

the courts ruled in his favor and Elite must remove his image within 6 months.

2 things about this story caught my interest:

1. Nowhere did I see was he interested in money. All he wanted was his image removed. the only time he sued for money was when they refused to remove his image, and it seems like the monetary demand was dropped (I guess) when the courts ruled against Elite and they agreed to comply.

2. The lawyer for the young man is a lawyer named Gilad Korinaldi. I recently read an article (in Mishpacha Hebrew magazine, if I remember correctly) about Gilad Korinaldi. He was the only lawyer to defeat Ariel Sharon and his government in the time of the disengagement in the many lawsuits against different aspects of the disengagement.

The Sharon government had decided, and insisted in subsequent decisions, that they would destroy the shuls in Gush Katif after pulling the residents out. The Sharon government decided they had to do this so as to prevent the rampage and destruction that was sure to be caused by the Arabs after Israel left the strip. he wanted to avoid images of Arabs destroying shuls, and felt it was better for Jews to destroy the shuls "respectfully" (!?) than to have it done in a disrespectful way.
Korinaldo sued and said we should not destroy the shuls. he went around the world to try to get international protection for the hsuls as holy sites, and there was a certain amount of agreement form various governments to provide a certain level of protection. Aside from that he pressed on against the Sharon decision to destroy the shuls claiming it would look very bad for us to destroy shuls, never have Jews done that before, better for us to leave them and hopefully they will be safe, but even if not at least they won't be destroyed by our hands.

After much deliberation, and with the courts seemingly inclined to rule in Korinaldi's favor, Ariel Sharon reconvened his government to discuss the matter again, for a fourth time I think, and this time they changed their position and decided to not destroy the shuls.

We were later exposed to the images of the Gazan Arabs destroying our shuls.

It interested me when I saw Korinaldi's name in the article about the shoko lawsuit, after recently reading about him in the Gush Katif shul issue.