{"id":638398,"date":"2026-05-12T11:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/638398\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:07:08","slug":"court-case-strikes-back-lawsuit-over-annie-leibovitzs-star-wars-photos-resurfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/638398\/","title":{"rendered":"Court case strikes back! Lawsuit over Annie Leibovitz\u2019s Star Wars photos resurfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

On May 05 (not quite Star Wars Day!) the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals<\/a> overruled a district court order that previously dismissed a lawsuit over photographs of the production of various Star Wars movies that were captured by famed portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The original lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Great Bowery Inc, the company behind licensing agency Trunk Archive, which was said to hold “exclusive worldwide representation to license her [Leibovitz] photographs.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The copyright infringement suit was filed against Consequence Sound LLC and later Consequence Media Group Inc, regarding the unauthorized usage of some of Leibovitz\u2019s Star Wars photographs on Consequence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

The district court\u2019s reasoning for dismissing Great Bowery\u2019s suit appears to stem from the perceived exclusivity of its image rights.<\/p>\n

The court documents reveal that Annie Leibovitz retained some rights over the imagery, which the district court identified as a point of conflict, ultimately ruling that Great Bowery didn\u2019t have exclusive worldwide rights while Leibovitz retained her own rights.<\/p>\n

But the court of appeals has concluded that \u201cthe district court\u2019s understanding of copyright law was not quite right,\u201d and has thus overturned the decision.<\/p>\n

My main takeaway from the court documents is that while Great Bowery doesn\u2019t possess all of the rights to the works in question, it does have exclusive worldwide access to the rights that it\u2019s been given, as stated in the following passage:<\/p>\n

The best camera deals, reviews, product advice, and unmissable photography news, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

“A plaintiff does not need to be the owner of all the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright; it only needs to be the owner of ‘that particular right’ which the defendant has allegedly infringed.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that the court of appeals has only reversed the district court\u2019s decision and paved the way for a revival of the original dispute.<\/p>\n

Time will tell whether this is case really does have any force or if it’s just a phantom menace\u2026<\/p>\n

You might also like… <\/p>\n

See where Annie Leibovitz ranks among the best photographers ever<\/a>. And if you’re a fan of her work (who isn’t?) then you’ll likely be interested in the best lenses for portraits<\/a> and the best cameras for portraits<\/a>. Plus, here are the best photography lighting kits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On May 05 (not quite Star Wars Day!) the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a district…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-638398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}