Photographer Sues Sony Music Publishing Over Stevie Wonder Instagram Post

A photographer has sued Sony Music Publishing, alleging that the company posted one of his photographs of Stevie Wonder on Instagram without permission. The lawsuit was filed on Sunday, Nov. 8, and Billboard, which obtained the complaint, was the first to report it.

The photographer, Alan Satterwhite, says the image was posted without a licence, the written permission that lets someone use a picture, often for a fee. The photo comes from a series he shot in 1974 showing Wonder seated at a piano. The post at the centre of the case was a 2023 Instagram carousel, a multi-image post that users swipe through, marking the 50th anniversary of Wonder's 1973 album Innervisions.

Satterwhite is seeking statutory damages of $150,000, the maximum available. Statutory damages are a fixed sum set by copyright law, which a rights holder can claim without proving exactly how much money was lost. Sony Music Publishing declined to comment on the lawsuit, according to Billboard.

These are allegations, and no court has ruled on them. The claims have not been tested, and the case could end in a ruling, a settlement or another outcome.

Satterwhite has filed a string of similar cases. Billboard reports that he has brought more than a dozen lawsuits over unauthorised uses of his photographs, including pictures of Stevie Wonder and of other subjects such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Brooks. Earlier defendants have included Amazon, Complex, CBS Radio and the Berklee College of Music.

For anyone who has ever shared a photo online without thinking about who took it, the case is a reminder that a picture has an owner, even when it appears everywhere. Photographers often earn their living by licensing their work, so each unpaid use is a question of income as well as credit. Whether that applies here will be for the court to decide.