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Jay-Z inside the stadium before Super Bowl LIV. REUTERS/Mike Blake
(Reuters) - Photographer Jonathan Mannion, who took the photo of rapper Jay-Z that appears on the cover of his debut album "Reasonable Doubt", lost his bid to escape Jay-Z's claims in Los Angeles federal court that he has been misusing the rapper's image to sell merchandise.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said he couldn't find at this early stage of the case that Mannion's use of Jay-Z's image was protected by the First Amendment or that the claims were preempted by the Copyright Act, in an opinion entered Thursday.
Mannion's attorney Steven Marenberg of Paul Hastings said in an email that the ruling "increases our confidence that Jonathan Mannion will ultimately win this lawsuit."
Jay-Z's attorney Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan declined to comment.
Mannion is known for his work with prominent hip-hop artists. Jay-Z sued in June, alleging Mannion, who shot the cover of "Reasonable Doubt" and took other photos of him, violated his right of publicity by misusing his likeness to sell shirts, turntable slipmats, and copies of the pictures.
Mannion moved to dismiss the claims in August, calling Jay-Z's filing a "vitriolic complaint filled with false insinuations of exploitation." He argued the claims were preempted by the Copyright Act and precluded by the First Amendment.
"Taken to their logical conclusion, Plaintiff's right of publicity claims would permit powerful celebrities to constrain artists from selling or licensing their creative works simply because their names or likenesses appear therein," Mannion's motion said. "Such a result offends not only federal copyright law, but also the First Amendment."
Anderson said in the opinion that he couldn't determine at the early stages of the case whether the pictures were protected by the First Amendment. The relevant question is whether Mannion's works added creative elements that transformed Jay-Z's image "into something more than a mere celebrity likeness," and Anderson said he couldn't answer it yet.
He also said allegations that Mannion sold merchandise featuring Jay-Z's image, not just the photos themselves, were "alone sufficient to undermine" Mannion's First Amendment argument at this point.
Anderson also declined to find that the state right-of-publicity claims should be dismissed based on the federal Copyright Act, which preempts "equivalent" state law claims.
Even if the court found that Jay-Z's claims related to Mannion's photos were preempted - "a determination the Court declines to make at this stage" - his allegations that Mannion misuses his image on t-shirts and slipmats were sufficient to create plausible right-of-publicity claims, Anderson said.
The case is Carter v. Mannion, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 2:21-cv-04848.
For Mannion: Steven Marenberg of Paul Hastings
For Jay-Z: Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
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