Ozzy Osbourne Sued by Photographer for Posting Photos of Himself on Social Media
Ozzy Osbourne finds himself in the weirdest of legal trouble, as he’s being sued for posting photos of himself on social media. Yup, you read that correctly.
According to Billboard, Osbourne is being sued by famous rock photographer Neil Zlozower, saying that Osbourne posted photos of himself to social media that were legally owned by Zlozower without seeking permission or paying a licensing fee. According to the text of the lawsuit:
“The accounts are key components of defendant’s popular and lucrative commercial enterprise. Defendant has over 12 million followers on [Facebook], and over 6 million followers on [Instagram], and over 5 million followers on [X] — all of which are monetized and provide significant financial benefits to defendant.”
Billboard also reports that Osbourne isn’t the first celebrity to be slapped with a lawsuit of this nature, with similar copyright cases being brought in recent years against Miley Cyrus, LeBron James, and Justin Bieber. In fact, Zlozower, in particular, has launched suits over similar situations with photos of Elvis Costello, Guns N’ Roses, and Mötley Crüe.
Personally, I would think someone posting photos of themselves without permission of the photographer would be a situation where the photographer would just be like “Hey, can you not do that?” and the celebrity would be like “Oops, my bad, taking them down.” But apparently Zlozower tried that and never heard back from Osbourne, forcing him to file a lawsuit.
Old people don’t particularly seem to understand social media very well, and this whole situation seems confusing even to people who do understand social media, so I guess I can understand how this misunderstanding happened. Regardless, I doubt that, even if Ozzy loses the lawsuit, the losses will amount to much more than a drop in the bucket for the legendary metal singer.
