Stakeholder #1

In this post I'll be describing the role of the woman who first took the photo of the dress, and to a lesser extent, her husband who is also involved.

"File:Stakeholder (en).svg" 12/11/2008 via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution Share Alike 3.0

1.Cecilia Bleasdale is the mother of Grace Johnston, who bought the infamous dress because she needed something to wear to Grace's wedding. She's a larger woman with blonde hair and slightly unconventional teeth who speaks loudly and excitedly with large hand movements. She seems pretty pleased to have her fifteen minutes of fame, but she has made some statements to the contrary that we'll discuss here too. She's only done the one interview with Ellen Degeneres, but on that show she wore the infamous dress that she first photographed. She appeared with her daughter and her daughter's friend, all of whom acted more reserved yet are not the focal point of this story. Cecilia does not now and did not really during the infamous Dressgate have much contact or communication with those trying to decide the color of the dress, as she was not the most important part of this controversy. Her husband did not appear on the Ellen show.

2. In another one of my sources, where Cecilia and her husband were interviewed. They make these claims, which are all from the same interview (but I have linked them all):

1. "We were completely left out from the story, we had no control" -Cecilia
2. "You saw all the companies using the blue and black and white and gold to sell their products and nobody wanted to miss out..." -Cecilia
3. "Basically they've taken our property and profited off it without even giving us a credit, a thank you, nothing." -Paul (Cecilia's husband)

In general, they seem to feel very cheated that they were not given more credit for taking the photo that has been said to have broken the internet. 

3. In theory these claims are valid. Cecilia and her husband took the photo, it belongs to them and they should be given credit. However, these claims are based in emotion. They never would have cared if the photo hadn't gone viral. And they did not take any action to secure a copyright to the photo, so it will be hard to do anything about it after the fact. It's hard to not agree with them, they do have a point in that they should own the photo. But the fact is, they did nothing to secure a copyright in time. The same source I've linked above says that they are considering legal action. 

4. These claims have nothing to do with claims of the other stakeholders, because this is the unique stakeholder who has taken the photo. Lots of other people have tried to figure out the color, and lots of other people have tried to figure out why we see different colors, but only one person actually took the photo and only one person trying to claim rights.