Our Plan To Save Annie Leibovitz's Finances
Annie Leibovitz has been sued—again—for passing off another photographer's work as her own. She allegedly stitched a portrait she took onto a background he took and passed it off as her own shot. Which gave us an idea! Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti sued Leibovitz last week for copyright infringement.
According to Bloomberg, Leibovitz hired Pizzetti last year to scout locations for a calendar she was shooting for the Italian coffee company LavAzza. Leibovitz did indeed shoot photos for the calendar, which was supposed to be themed "The Italian Espresso Experience," but she couldn't actually make it to Italy to photograph the models. No problem—she just shot her models in New York and then pasted them onto photos taken in scenic Italian backgrounds. No muss, no fuss, the check cleared.
But Pizzetti wasn't in on the joke, apparently, and was shocked to find his background shot actually in the calendar—that's the photo at issue. Our reaction: Who knew how easy it is to be a celebrity international photographer? You don't even have to go anywhere! And while we were waiting to for news from the passing of today's deadline for the repayment of Art Capital Group's $24 million loan to Leibovitz (spokespersons for both Art Capital and Leibovitz had no comment on the deadline), it occurred to us that photoshop-whoring some of her more iconic shots could, with the click of a mouse, make those money troubles go away. We thought we'd get her started.