Court Revives Copyright Lawsuit Over Annie Leibovitz's ‘Star Wars’ Photos

An appeals court has revived Annie Leibovitz’s agency’s copyright lawsuit against an online magazine over its use of her photographs from the Star Wars movie set.

On Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court wrongly dismissed the lawsuit brought by licensing company Great Bowery Inc. against online outlet Consequence Sound LLC based on a lower court’s misunderstanding of copyright law.

The dispute centers on a group of Star Wars cast photographs taken by Leibovitz for Vanity Fair. In 2014, Leibovitz signed an “Artist Agreement” with Trunk Archive, a business operated by Great Bowery, granting the company the “exclusive worldwide right to license, market, and promote” certain images from the shoot.

In 2022, Great Bowery sued online outlet Consequence in federal court, alleging the publication improperly posted some of the photographs on its website. Although Leibovitz herself was not a party to the lawsuit, Great Bowery argued it had the legal right to sue because the agency held an exclusive license to the images.

Consequence challenged the lawsuit, arguing Great Bowery lacked standing because Leibovitz still owned the copyrights and retained some rights to the photographs herself. And in 2024, a federal judge in Florida sided with Consequence and granted summary judgment in the online outlet’s favor, ruling that Great Bowery could not sue for copyright infringement because it did not hold exclusive rights to the photographs.

However, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision this week and revived Great Bowery’s lawsuit over Leibovitz’s Star Wars images, finding that the lower court misunderstood how copyright licenses work under U.S. law. According to Vital Law, the appeals court says Leibovitz’s decision to retain some rights under a separate authorization agreement did not automatically prevent Great Bowery from being considered an exclusive licensee with the right to sue. The judges noted that copyright rights can be split up and shared in different ways under U.S. law.

Consequence previously argued that Great Bowery could not hold an exclusive license because Condé Nast, which owns Vanity Fair, already had a nonexclusive right to publish the photographs. But the appeals court rejected that argument as well, ruling that Condé Nast’s publishing rights did not prevent Great Bowery from holding an exclusive license.