Jay-Z Reportedly Sues ‘Reasonable Doubt’ Album Cover Photographer Over Likeness Use
According to TMZ, Jay-Z suing Jonathan Mannion and his company, Jonathan Mannion Photography LLC, claiming the photographer is exploiting his name and image without his consent.
In docs obtained by the news site, Jay says Mannion has his name and likeness plastered all over his website and sells tons of photos of Jay-Z for thousands of dollars. So what’s the big problem? Well, Jay-Z says he never gave Mannion permission to do so — and he claims when he asked Mannion to stop using his image, the photog actually demanded tens of millions of dollars. Mannion was the photographer who was hired back in 1996 to shoot the cover for “Reasonable Doubt.” Jay says Mannion took hundreds of pics and Roc-A-Fella Records used some of the photographs for his album covers and paid Mannion a lot for those uses.
However, Jay claims Mannion is making an “arrogant assumption that because he took those photographs, he can do with them as he pleases,” TMZ quotes. Jay states 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.”
The rap star notes that he has strict control over whether and how his name, likeness, identity and persona are used. With that said, he’s suing to put a stop to Mannion selling the pics, and wants him to hand over any of the profits he’s made off his likeness.
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