Leibovitz's $24M Deadline Looms Tuesday

Artist files copyright complaint against bookend maker

(NEWSER) - Jeff Koons, the pop artist famous for making shiny, 10-foot-tall statues in the shape of balloon-animal dogs, is now taking legal action against a company that makes book-ends in a similar shape, and a gallery gift shop that sells them. Which is pretty ironic, the New York Times points out, because Koons has made a career of appropriating pop culture imagery, and has been successfully sued for copyright violation three times. More»

Photog owes fee for $40M loan: company

(NEWSER) - An investment firm that claims it saved celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz from financial ruin is now suing her for failure to pay the company $800,000 in service and finder fees. Brunswick Capital Partners wasn't paid after finding a private equity group to advance a $40 million loan to bail out the strapped Vanity Fair photog, according to court documents filed in Manhattan. Leibovitz, 60, nearly lost all of her art and the rest of her holdings last year after violating the terms of a $24 million loan, reports Reuters . More»

Techies alleges copyright violation costing them $75M a day

(NEWSER) - The founders of Skype are suing eBay and the investor consortium buying the Internet phone company, accusing them of copyright violation, reports the Wall Street Journal. The suit is only the latest bump in eBay's disastrous ownership of Skype and may complicate the planned $2 billion sale. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom allege that their new company, Joltid, owns a peer-to-peer technology that is also used in Skype's software and claims it is suffering damages "of more than $75 million daily." More»

Photog gets reprieve, but property, rights to work still at risk

(NEWSER) - Annie Leibovitz has won an extension of her outstanding $24 million debt to Arts Capital Group, the New York Times reports. The celebrity photographer bought back the rights to her homes and intellectual property—both collateral in the loan—for an undisclosed sum as part of the restructured deal. But she could still lose them if she doesn't keep up with payments on the renegotiated loan. More»

(NEWSER) - Photographer to the stars Annie Leibovitz is in a widely reported financial pickle, but it really comes as no surprise to those close to her, New York reports. Leibovitz is now engaged in baroque legal wrangling over her catalog, but her troubles started earlier. Insiders say a suspected “contract for life” with Vanity Fair and a $250,000 day rate are hogwash, and that she has simply lived above her means for quite some time. “She wanted her life to be like a magazine spread,” an associate says. More»