Jay-Z is suing Jonathan Mannion and his company, Jonathan Mannion Photography LLC, claiming that Jonathan has been using his image for monetary gain without his consent.
It’s ironic that a photographer would treat the image of a formerly-unknown Black teenager, now wildly successful, as a piece of property to be squeezed for every dollar it can produce. It stops today.
Jay said when he told Mannion to quit using his image, Mannion demanded millions of dollars.
Jay hired Mannion back in 1996 to shoot the Reasonable Doubt album cover. Jay said Mannion took hundreds of pictures, which he was compensated well for, and Roc-A-Fella Records used some of the pictures for other Jay-Z album covers.
Years after being compensated for the pictures, Mannion continued to display images of Jay-Z on his website, where he sells Jay-Z pics and merchandise.
Today, Mannion appears to have recently scrubbed his website of all Jay-Z pics.
Jay is suing to stop the sale of any merchandise containing his image or likeness, and he wants Mannion to hand over any of the profits he’s made in the past off his likeness.
Your thoughts?
Source: TMZ
