this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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Oh it's photos of Ozzy taken by a professional photographer that were posted without the photographer's permission.
For me that's exactly the larger issue - the only reason these images have any value whatsoever is that the subject is famous. And he got famous without any help from that photographer. But it's morally okay for the photographer to profit from it and share none of it, Seems very similar to employers keeping all the profit and not sharing it with the workers who created the profit.
edit: since people keep giving me legal arguments, speculating that Ozzy probably had a contract with this photographer, etc., let me clarify that if there was a contract then this is strictly a contract dispute, and I'm not arguing any side of that. I'm strictly talking about the fact that we have no rights to our own faces - no matter how much we may have done to make ourselves worth photographing. Anybody with a camera is free to tap that value by pressing a button. I think there's something fundamentally wrong with that.
That's not necessarily true though.
The degree of monetary value comes from the person in the picture, but the photographs have value on their own. Maybe not much, but it's there.
Whether or not anyone likes the capitalist system that's behind needing to decide who can profit off of a photograph to what degree, the subject of a photo is only partly responsible for the photo.
Taking a picture of a
is indeed different from that of a 
, but you can see that a human being in the picture doesn't automatically change the value of it as art.
Portraiture, live photography of events, those are skills. It absolutely is not as simple as pushing a button. Even now, with digital cameras that can make some of the adjustments on the fly, a photographer getting a good image is more than luck.
That's why, when doing portraits and event photography, there's contracts in place. It is entirely possible to hire a photographer and have ownership of the images. It's expensive, but it's possible. You or me? We ain't taking pictures of Ozzy and having them be worth much of anything at all to anyone else, including Ozzy. Our images would only be monetarily valuable because he's in them, and maybe not even then. A selfie at a back stage event? You aren't making shit off of that
A professional photographer, taking high quality images of famous people absolutely brings value to the end photo. There's a reason why rich, famous people will hire them and negotiate contracts with them, and it isn't because they're too lazy to handle a camera, or don't have flunkies willing to do the work.
Again, if we wanna debate the merits of capitalism and it's impact on the arts, that's a fascinating subject. But this lawsuit, within the current legal paradigm, is perfectly valid. The photographer has rights to the images, Ozzy doesn't. If Ozzy had wanted those rights, it is possible (in general) to do so, either at the time or afterwards.
Maybe you haven't run across it, but there's actually a lot of people into portraiture as art. They'll gladly pony up thousands, or more for what they consider great art photos of people that aren't famous at all. Even Anne Geddes (the photographer of the baby bee image) has fans of her stuff willing to pay tidy sums, and her stuff is essentially fluff with little complexity. Well executed fluff, but still. You get into the serious portraiture photogs and you're talking sometimes hundreds of thousands for prints, though it's kinda rare to go that high afaik.
An image can have earth-shattering aesthetic value due to the skill and sensitivity of the photographer, or can be an ineptly snapped photo of Jennifer Aniston that's only valuable because she's in it. Either way the photographer has all the rights and the subject has none, and I don't think that makes sense.
That's just it, the subject does have rights. I'm not sure why you think they don't.
While truly public photos have distant different rules, these weren't public photos.
Neil Zlozower is a specialist in music photography. While I don't expect anyone to know that without looking, it is easily available information.
If you don't know what that means, it means that musicians are his collaborators, not some random people he snapped pics of as they walked down the road.
The photos in question were taken under contract. Ozzy agreed to the terms, or Zlozower wouldn't have been able to take them. The pics with Randy Rhodes may be famous, but that doesn't mean that Ozzy can just up and decide to use them in violation of that contract.
This isn't some random asshole that had a small 110 camera in his pocket and caught a few pics. He was a professional there to take pics, and everything was agreed on, and signed, before he took the first one.
Now, what that agreement was, I have no clue. But, and this is the important part, it absolutely would have included usage rights. Most of the time, such contracts don't include the subject of the photos being able to use them commercially. And that's what the lawsuit is about, the photographer is saying that the usage was commercial, and violates his copyright.
Now, if you want to say that isn't the way things should be that's a different issue. But that's the way things are, no matter what anyone's opinion is.
This can't be overstated. Taking good portraits of people is not easy. The requisite skills go beyond the technical aspects of photography, extending into social skill territory. You have to know how to direct people, you have to understand body language and what emotions it may convey. Being able to create flattering images, while working with subjects of various personalities and standards, takes skill.
I enjoy photography. But I don't do portraits.
This is the snake eating its tail.
The photographer only took photos because he was famous. The photographer is getting money from someone else's work.
But the person you are profiting from cannot use the photographs because he is profiting from your work?
I understand that legally, there is a set of laws to manage that. But ethically that is fucked up that the person you took a photo from didn't give you permission and you profit from their notoriety, but that person cannot use the photos himself.
How is it dishonest? If Ozzy wasn't famous, that wouldn't be an issue.
Still not explaining why you are saying this is a dishonest framing?
Kinda makes you wonder, what the fuck kinda contract did they have that Ozzy doesn't own the photos?
Well a free market contract ofcourse.
Yes, photos whose only value lies in the fame of the subject. I think people deserve some form of rights to images of themselves, since they created that value by doing whatever made them worth photographing. Our legal system should acknowledge that.
And yet they hired that photographer specifically because not every photographer is the same. The value is in both the photography and the subject and ps our legal system does. This sounds like a contract dispute.
Unless you make a different contract, a photographer has all rights to all photos they take of anyone, whether they were hired or not. I'm not talking about Ozzie's problem, I'm talking about how the law works in general.
Yeah and if Ozzy were using them in a professional context (like for an album cover) then the professional photographer should be compensated.
But if he's he's just posting some photos of himself with his friends online, then it's a big nothing burger and the photographer should be a professional about it and consider it as fair use. Whether it fits the legal definition of fair use will need to be decided in court, but a real professional wouldn't consider it worth the time and loss of trust with other customers to pursue it.