Neil Zlozower, a veteran rock photographer who’s snapped photographs of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, is suing Warner Information over a Fb publish that includes an image of Tom Petty — the newest of greater than 50 court cases the litigious photog has filed during the last decade.
In a case filed in Los Angeles federal court docket, Zlozower accuses Warner of infringing the copyright to his picture, which depicts ’70s-era Petty sitting in entrance of a document participant. His attorneys declare the picture used to be posted in 2020 to the legitimate Fb web page for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, which Warner allegedly controls.
“Defendant has no longer applied ok inside insurance policies to ensure copyright possession sooner than content material use, indicating a gross negligence in felony compliance, which is very important for a corporation with defendant’s achieve, features, and degree of class,” Zlozower’s legal professional Craig Sanders writes within the July 23 criticism.
Warner’s alleged failure to make use of such copyright protections signifies “de facto willful infringement” through the corporate, the lawsuit claims — a key accusation, since beneath U.S. copyright legislation “willful” violations can lead to greater damages of as much as $150,000 consistent with paintings.
A spokesman for Warner didn’t go back a request for remark at the lawsuit’s allegations.
The case is rarely the primary for Zlozower, who has additionally photographed Prince, Van Halen and numerous different bands and artists over a decades-long profession. Since 2016, court docket information display he’s filed a whopping 57 copyright court cases towards a variety of defendants in federal courts across the nation, not easy financial damages over the alleged unauthorized use of his pictures.
Lots of his circumstances have focused media firms, together with CBS, Buzzfeed and Vice. However he’s additionally two times sued Common Song Team, as soon as over a picture of Elvis Costello and all over again over a photograph of Weapons N’ Roses. A distinct case focused Ticketmaster, accusing the Are living Country unit of the usage of a picture of Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde. In 2019, Zlozower sued the guitar maker Gibson over claims that the corporate used a shot of Eddie Van Halen with out permission.
Copyright court cases over the unauthorized use of pictures on the web are extraordinarily commonplace, with loads filed within the federal courts every yr. The photographers and lawyers who deliver them say it’s their most effective actual recourse towards rampant on-line robbery in their highbrow belongings, ceaselessly through refined firms that are supposed to know higher.
“Photographers who’re excited about protective their copyright haven’t any different selection however to report go well with in [court] when an infringer refuses to barter,” says David C. Deal, an legal professional who represents photographers in such circumstances. “Photographers are the overpowering losers within the virtual age as a result of they’re correctly compensated at a fragment of the velocity at which their highbrow belongings is copied and utilized by others.”
However critics have puzzled the techniques of a few specifically litigious photographers and their lawyers, suggesting they’re the usage of litigation itself as a trade fashion — particularly, through leveraging the specter of massive damages and prohibitive prices of to win as many small “nuisance” settlements as imaginable.
In 2019, a federal pass judgement on sharply criticized David Oppenheimer, a North Carolina photographer who filed greater than 170 such court cases. As detailed through The Meeting, Pass judgement on Martin Reidinger cited Oppenheimer’s giant calls for and prime quantity of circumstances sooner than pronouncing that he “seems to be the usage of the copyright regulations as a income, reasonably than as redress for professional harm.”
A yr previous, a New York federal pass judgement on used harsher language about Richard Liebowitz, a Lengthy Island legal professional who filed 1000’s of such picture infringement circumstances. Pass judgement on Denise Cote classified the legal professional a “copyright troll” — which she outlined as somebody who objectives to win “fast” settlements which are “priced simply low sufficient” that it makes monetary sense to easily “pay the troll reasonably than protect the declare.”
“As evidenced through the astonishing quantity of filings coupled with an astonishing price of voluntary dismissals and fast settlements in Mr. Liebowitz’s circumstances on this district, it’s undisputable that Mr. Liebowitz is a copyright troll,” the pass judgement on wrote in her 2018 determination.
In November 2021, Liebowitz used to be suspended from training legislation in New York over a trend of misconduct, together with “habits that made a mockery of orderly litigation processes.” Previous this yr, he used to be disbarred through the state for failing to agree to court docket orders and making false statements.
In keeping with federal court docket information, Liebowitz represented Zlozower within the overwhelming majority of his copyright circumstances till 2021. In 2018, his company filed 9 court cases on behalf of the photographer, together with one towards Spotify over a picture of Mötley Crüe at the band’s artist web page. Within the yr 2019 on my own, Liebowitz’s company filed 14 extra circumstances for Zlozower, together with one towards famed indie document retailer Amoeba Song.
In keeping with Deal, many photographers face an “unimaginable place” at the trendy web: Permit for-profit companies to milk their works without cost, or “insist on being correctly compensated” and possibility being classified a “troll” after they take motion in court docket. However even inside of that context of mass infringement, Deal says, Zlozower’s quantity of litigation turns out surprisingly prime.
“The theory of 1 photographer submitting a mean of 5-6 circumstances consistent with yr moves me as over the top,” Deal says, pronouncing his personal company will most effective generally sue in a “very small share of circumstances” after onerous each and every different choice.
One in every of Zlozower’s earliest circumstances used to be filed towards Mötley Crüe itself. Represented through Liebowitz, he accused the band in September 2016 of constructing t-shirts and different live performance merch for its 2014 “Ultimate Excursion” that have been emblazoned with pictures he had snapped of Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and different individuals all through Crüe’s Eighties heyday. However in contrast to many such defendants, the band in fact fought again.
All over two years of litigation, lawyers for Mötley Crüe argued that the band had already paid many years previous for the precise to make use of the ones photographs, and that it had “persevered to make use of them with out objection ever since.” Crüe additionally filed its personal countersuit, accusing Zlozower of infringing their logos and likenesses through the usage of the band’s title and pictures to promote books and prints: “Zlozower by no means asked, nor gained, consent to promote pictures depicting the likenesses of the band individuals of Mötley Crüe.”
However in 2020, the case towards Crüe ended like lots of Zlozower’s have: in a confidential agreement and the voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit, with out a ultimate ruling at the deserves. Phrases of the settlement weren’t disclosed in court docket filings.
Zlozower and his present legal professional, Sanders, didn’t go back requests for remark from Billboard.
