It turns out that someone accidentally put this photo of The Office star on a public domain site years ago
It’s not clear who uploaded Novak’s image as public domain on a stock album, nor which website it was exactly on. But according to the actor himself, years ago, someone mistakenly put an image of him on a public domain website. Now, the image of Novak on various foreign household items keeps turning up, but it seems like the actor himself is taking it lightheartedly.
And so, unbeknownst to him, B.J. Novak launched his modeling career, becoming the cover of miscellaneous household items around the world
In a series of Instagram stories cheekily captioned “Modeling,” Novak shared all the products he spotted his photo on, but people suspect there may be much more. So why hasn’t he corrected this hilarious mistake? “I am too amused to do anything about it,” he said on his Story post.
For those wondering what a public domain image actually means, it’s basically a photo, clip art or vector whose copyright has expired or never existed in the first place. Public domain images can be used by virtually anyone for both personal or even commercial purposes.
Moreover, Public domain (PD) images can be used freely without permission or attribution, while the other popular category—Creative Commons (CC) images can be used freely as long as they are properly attributed to their creator.
Interestingly, Novak isn’t the only A-list actor whose years-old photos are surfing around like this. It turns out that Marvel star Simu Liu is now in some ads too after he posed for some stock images back in 2014. These photos continue to be used for things like gym ads, storefronts and pamphlets. For those who worry, Liu has allegedly made only $120 for that photo shoot with somewhat of a tremendous lasting power.
People found it totally hilarious and this is what they had to comment
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"-nods-".