Annie Leibovitz sued by Italian photographer

An Italian photographer is suing celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, claiming that she used his pictures without gaining his permission.

The photographer, Paolo Pizzetti, claims that Leibovitz used pictures that he had taken in Rome and Venice and used them in a coffee company's 2009 calender, passing them off as her own work. Pizzetti is seeking a sum of $300,000 (£180,000) for copyright infringement and a court order to prevent the pictures being used. Legal papers filed at a New York Federal Court state that Mr Pizzetti had been hired by Ms Leibovitz to scout locations in Italy in April 2008 for an upcoming advertising campaign for the coffee company Lavazza. He says that he was informed later that Leibovitz would not be travelling to Italy for a photo shoot, after he'd sent her various pictures he had taken including ones of the Trevi Fountain in Rome and Plaza San Marco in Venice. Pizzetti then states that when he saw the calender at it's release in October 2008 he noticed that two of the images were his but with models superimposed onto them. BBC News reports that in his complaint he states: "the same wet weather conditions, cloud formation and the same bird in the upper left portion of the photograph," following a comparison of the two Plaza San Marco pictures. He says that it's clear the Plaza work was copied and edited. He also adds that at no time did Leibovitz ever hint that she would use his pictures, nor did she seek his permission to use them. It's also claimed that Paolo Pizzetti is seeking other unnamed damages and requesting that the pictures be destroyed. A spokesperson for Annie Leibovitz declined to comment on this new legal action. As Digital Journal reported recently, Ms Leibovitz is currently being sued by Art Capital Group Inc over a $24million (£14.6m) loan. As also reported in Digital Journal if she fails to pay back that loan by September 8th she could lose the rights to her thousands of negatives currently held in storage and she could also lose her three New York properties.