Photography Collection

By Daryl Lang
In a new lawsuit, Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti accuses Annie Leibovitz of using two of his photographs without permission in a major ad campaign for which she took the sole photo credit.
Pizzetti accuses the Leibovitz Studio of creating an “infringing derivative work” and seeks $150,000 for each instance of infringement, an injunction preventing Leibovitz from using the photos, and costs and fees. The suit concerns the 2009 Lavazzo coffee calendar, for which Leibovitz shot models posing with scenes of Italy in the background. Through a spokesperson, Leibovitz declined to comment. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of blows to Leibovitz, who has been struggling with debts. Leibovitz had a $24 million loan due September 8 and two pending lawsuits against her by photo suppliers over unpaid bills. A spokesperson for Art Capital Group, which loaned Leibovitz the $24 million with her entire photo archive and two houses as collateral, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Documents filed with the lawsuit suggest that Leibovitz had planned to travel to Italy for the shoots, but plans changed while the job was underway last year.
According to the lawsuit, the Leibovitz Studio hired Pizzetti to scout locations in Italy for the Lavazza shoot. In April 2008, Pizzetti traveled to Venice, Verona, Gubbio, Rome, Umbria and Tuscany, and sent digital pictures back to the Leibovitz Studio. Among his pictures were the Trevi Fountain in Rome and the Piazza San Marco in Venice. In October 2008, Lavazza released the calendar, which contains seven images credited to Leibovitz. Two of the backgrounds in the calendar match the scouting backdrops provided by Pizzetti. The lawsuit says Pizzetti did not authorize their publication. Pizzetti’s photo of the Trevi Fountain, provided as an exhibit in the lawsuit, matches the backdrop in Leibovitz’s image very closely. Splashes of water throughout the image line up exactly with the background of Leibovitz’s photo. Regarding his photo of the Piazza San Marco, Pizzetti says the background of another Leibovitz photo “shows the same wet weather conditions, cloud formation and the same bird in the upper left portion of the photograph, just above the line of buildings.”
An e-mail dated Thursday, April 3, 2008 from an employee at the Leibovitz Studio reads, “I am trying to confirm but it looks like Annie will come to Italy on April 14 and 15 shoot background plates for the Lavazza calendar.... Are you available to work with Annie?” But the trip apparently never happened. An e-mail dated Wednesday, July 30, 2008, from a different Leibovitz employee says, “Unfortunately the shoot is no longer happening in Italy, it is now happening in New York. We need to release your time for the shoot dates. Please send me your invoice for the scouting.” Pizzetti’s agency, StudioNAP, billed Leibovitz a total of $1,338.84 for scouting trip, including hotel and food. The April 3 message indicates that the studio had seen Pizzetti’s images. It asks, “Also, can we get permission for Annie to stand in the Trevi Fountain and shoot from that perspective?” The suit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.