Late last year, Jennifer Lopez found herself embroiled in a $150,000 lawsuit. After initially calling for the case to be dismissed, she has in the last few days had a change of heart, agreeing to settle with the photographer.
As per The Blast, court documents show the pair reached a settlement in principle, and the case is being dismissed as per their joint request.
The drama began after Lopez posted an image of herself walking through New York City, taken by Michael Stewart, to her Instagram story. In what is now undeniable irony, she captioned it: “Today was a good day!!” The photographer then licensed it to the Daily Mail, where it appeared in an article on their website on June 29, 2018. Stewart even registered it with the United States Copyright Office.
After being sued by Stewart, the pop singer fired back, accusing him of improperly serving her with the lawsuit.
The case is one of several of a similar nature in recent years, with photographers, even paparazzi, taking a firmer stance in celebrities posting images to their Instagram without credit. Musician Bruno Mars was one example, after he was sued for posting an image of himself as a child.
Lead image: "Jennifer Lopez" by Nathan Congleton, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .
It was cheaper to settle than pay solicitors to protect that billon dollar ass.
I wonder how much the daily depreciation on that is.
Depends on how hard you smak dat
The legal issue is not who profits off of whom. The fame of the subject is irrelevant in whether to not it adds value to the image. Copyright by laws going back to the original draft of the Constitution grant all copyright to the creator of the work, meaning the photographer. If no release was signed the subject does have a legal right to likeness which would restrict selling the image for advertising purposes, to present it in a defamatory context or to alter it in a defamatory manner.
Personally for social media I would be more sympathetic to celebrities claiming “fair use” if they at the very least included full photo credits. Even fair use laws talk about the term in the context of discussion and debate in which citations of the original work would be included.