The troubles are piling on for Annie Leibovitz. Today is the day she must make good on her loan. The disastrous encounter between Leibovitz’s financial advisers and ACG’s experiment in real estate and commercial photography (including the idea of earning back their loan by having Leibovitz work it off) was the product of wishful thinking on the part of both parties. But the fallout remains to be seen.
In the meantime, everyone is coming out of the woodwork with their complaints against Leibovitz. Here’s Bloomberg:
More legal trouble erupted yesterday when Paolo Pizzetti, a photographer from Siena, Italy, sued Leibovitz in U.S. District Court in New York, alleging she misappropriated photos he took and used them in advertising campaign.
Pizzetti says Leibovitz hired him to shoot photographs of scouting locations for an ad campaign for LavAzza, the Italian coffee company, in April 2008. He said he photographed the Trevi Fountain in Rome and Plaza San Marco in Venice and images of other sites for her and sent her the images digitally. […]
“It is clear that the Leibovitz defendants copied the Plaza work authored by Pizzetti and edited it,” he said. […] He seeks a court order requiring Leibovitz to stop using the images and $150,000 per infringement of his images as well as other unspecified damages.
“Since we have not yet seen the filing, we have no comment,” said Leibovitz spokesman, Matthew Hiltzik.
Leibovitz Gets a One-Month Extension in Lawsuit Tied to Loan (Bloomberg)