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Annie Leibovitz Could Lose Copyright Over $24 Million Loan
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by Jordan Yerman | September 8, 2009 at 10:18 am
214 views | 16 Recommendations | 6 comments
Annie Leibovitz, one of the world's most well-known photographers, is in danger of defaulting on a $24 million loan from Art Capital Group (ACG), over which she could lose the rights to her own negatives, as well as her two homes in New York. (Highlights from Annie Leibovitz's career so far) (Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair)
Annie Leibovitz is currently being sued by Art Capital for breach of contract; Art Capital Group claims that Annie Leibovitz has blocked real-estate appraisers from entering her properties, and has stopped the firm from selling some of her photos.
The loan in question comes due today.
Ms. Leibovitz’s plight has attracted interest since the news broke in February that, faced with mounting debts and court cases from unpaid vendors, she had borrowed millions of dollars from Art Capital, using the rights to her photographs as collateral.
Meanwhile, Annie Leibovitz is also getting sued by Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti, who claims that Leibovitz used some of his location photos as her own work, and is suing her for $300,000.
Paolo Pizzetti claims Ms Leibovitz used photos he took in Venice and Rome, and passed them off as her own in a 2009 calendar for a coffee company.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (6)
at 10:31 on September 8th, 2009
I read the blog in the NYT, but it seems to me there must be more to this story. Why did she borrow so much money, and what happened to all of it?
at 10:40 on September 8th, 2009
I found the information below about some of the debt. Mortgage debts appear to make up the bulk of the 24 million. I wonder if she got caught in the mortgage crisis, and now the homes are not worth the amount she borrowed to buy them. Somehow we think famous people are immune to the disasters that befall common folk.
Before Leibovitz, we were arguably living in a Mad Men world of goofy visuals, meaningless phrases and an absolute ignorance of women or youth. It's that influence that's in danger of being forgotten as we marvel at her spectacular misspending - mortgage debts of $15m, a total of $2.1m in unpaid taxes, plus various claims of unpaid bills that top out above $500,000. "The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager," according to Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair.
at 14:18 on September 8th, 2009
Annie Leibovitz tends to attract lawsuits as well: one of her neighbors is suing her for $15 million over renovations to her NYC home.
at 18:15 on September 8th, 2009
she still owns more than $40 million of property
at 18:26 on September 8th, 2009
Well if it is true she used someones photos as her own, then she may as well work for NP/.
at 11:36 on September 9th, 2009
Art Capital from the description I found are loan sharks for artists.
Art Capital is in the business of making money off art and sometimes, artists. The company issues loans of $500,000 or more at interest rates from six percent to 16 percent to those who have artwork worthy of making such a loan. It operates like a pawn shop; if you fail to pay and you lose your precious art. Case in point, a Rubens hanging in the Art Capital offices once belonged to Veronica Hearst, the widow of Randolph Apperson Hearst. She mortgaged her art to hold onto Villa Venezio in Manalapan, Florida. She eventually lost the home in foreclosure. Artist Julian Schnabel sued Art Capital this year. He took out an $8 million loan in 2006, when he was building his pink folly known as Palazzo Chupi. Schnabel claims he paid back the loan but Art Capital says it is entitled to more money because Schnabel did not reveal there was an existing mortgage on the property. An ArtInfo article on that suit quotes Gerald Peters, a Santa Fe-based dealer who has bought paintings from Art Capital and says that "the game they have to play is rough, but the service they are providing is real. And there's demand for it."