

In another case, Katy Perry was sued after she reposted an image of her 2016 Halloween costume: a Hollywood-grade Hillary Clinton outfit that featured professional prosthetics. Cyrus’s ex-boyfriend Liam Hemsworth was hit with one in 2019. Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande have also been sued – by the same photographer who filed suit against Cyrus and Lipa this year. In addition to Cyrus, Lipa and Kardashian, many other celebrities have found themselves facing copyright cases after posting photos of themselves. But simply taking, selling and publishing a photo for editorial purposes is usually fair game. The use of Lipa’s image in an advertisement or marketing materials would clearly violate her right of publicity, for instance.

In certain circumstances, a celebrity could argue that a photo of them violated their right of publicity – that is, their right to commercially exploit their own likeness. But in public spaces – the street, a restaurant, a nightclub, a public beach – paparazzi can generally snap away without seeking permission. Someone like Cyrus might be able sue over a photo that was taken in a place where she had a so-called reasonable expectation of privacy, like the inside of her home. Can’t they sue him for taking a photo without consent? “Just because they’re the subject of a photo doesn’t mean they have any ownership rights in it,” Wolff told Billboard earlier this summer. Nancy Wolff, an attorney at the law firm Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard who specializes in photo copyrights, attributes the problem to a basic “misunderstanding” by celebrities. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free.
#PAPARAZZI ATLANTA LICENSE#
copyright law is pretty clear cut: It’s the photographers who own the copyrights to the images that they take, and using those photos without a license constitutes infringement. “They can legally stalk me and harass me and then on top of it all I can’t even use the pictures of myself they take LOL what the f- is this,” Kardashian wrote at the time.īut unfair as it might seem, U.S.

That’s essentially what Khloe Kardashian said on Twitter in 2018, after being hit with a similar lawsuit to the ones Cyrus and Lipa are now facing. Why can he sue celebrities over images of themselves?įor celebrities who are hounded by paparazzi, it may seem only fair that they can at least use the photos themselves. Check out the 15 celebs below and be prepared to be shocked, not shocked and a little confused.Britney Spears' Lawyer Says Jamie Spears Shared Pop Star's Private Medical Information Certain celebs have a harder time keeping their participation mum and others just don't seem to care. Even if we swear we can't stand another picture of a certain celeb, it doesn't mean that we won't feed into it. When celebs have the control to say when and where to shoot, they win. There are a lot of reasons why celebrities would stage photo ops with the paparazzi, but one very important reason is control. Some are great pictures and others get the right angles at the wrong time and end up exposing celebrities for what they really are: not perfect.īut just because paps decide to throw celebs under the bus a time or two, doesn't mean it's just their idea. When we read gossip magazines and surf the web for our latest celeb gossip, sometimes there seems to be a trend in who is shown and who isn't. There's no way they have any help getting to where they are now, right? Meh, that's a little far-fetched. For the most part, celebrities have gotten to where they are by perseverance, hard work and both eyes on the prize.
