Photographer Sues Ozzy Osbourne for Sharing His Images on Social Media

Ozzy Osbourne (seen in 2018)

Ozzy Osbourne is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit after the rock star posted multiple images of himself on Instagram without the photographer’s permission.

In the lawsuit which was filed on Monday in Los Angeles federal court, prolific rock photographer Neil Zlozower claims Osbourne illegally shared his images on social media.

Zlozower accuses the Black Sabbath frontman of posting his images of him on Facebook, Instagram, and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) without seeking permission or paying the photographer a licensing fee.

“The accounts are key components of defendant’s popular and lucrative commercial enterprise,” the lawsuit says, according to a report by Billboard.

“Defendant has over 12 million followers on [Facebook], and over 6 million followers on [Instagram], and over five million followers on [X] — all of which are monetized and provide significant financial benefits to defendant.”

Zlozower’s legal team claims that Osbourne posted multiple photos, including five staged portraits of the singer with Zakk Wylde, his longtime guitarist, and another showing Osbourne onstage with Randy Rhoads, his guitarist from his first two solo albums, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1982.

Zlozower asserts that his team contacted Osbourne about the alleged unauthorized posts in June, and again in August and September. However, the photographer says Osbourne “failed to respond,” forcing him to “seek judicial intervention for defendant’s infringing activity.”

Osborne is the latest celebrity to be taken to court by a photographer or photo agency over the misuse of intellectual property in recent months.

U.S. copyright law is quite straightforward when it comes to intellectual property and clearly states that the person who “authored” a work is the copyright owner, such as a photographer who takes a picture of a celebrity. But despite this crystal-clear definition of intellectual property in the eyes of the law, some celebrities still refuse to license images for their social media and adamantly believe they should own the photos taken of them, not the photographers.

Some celebrities have argued that they have the right to photographs of them because they are “joint authors” and because they have cooperated with the photographer and posed for the picture, they have therefore established themselves as a co-creator.

In 2019, supermodel Gigi Hadid used this argument when she claimed that posting a copyrighted photo of herself on Instagram was “fair use” because she had contributed to the photo by smiling in it.

Courts generally reject this argument, as did the judge who ruled over Hadid’s case.

However, last year, Hadid was ordered to pay only $3,000 in damages to a photographer after she failed to respond to his copyright lawsuit. The supermodel didn’t even bother to hire a lawyer over the photographer’s suit. Consequently, it appears that Hadid may have “got off easy” as a result of her actions — or lack thereof.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.