Sony Music Sued by Photographer

Sony Music Publishing (SMP) is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for allegedly posting an “iconic photograph” of Stevie Wonder to its Instagram page without a license.

The Sony Music Entertainment unit was sued on Sunday (Nov. 8) by Alan Satterwhite, a photographer who shot a series of Wonder sitting at a piano in 1974. SMP allegedly included one of those photos in a 2023 Instagram carousel celebrating the 50th anniversary of Wonder’s 1973 album Innervisions, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and spent a total of 89 weeks on the chart.

According to Satterwhite’s lawsuit, obtained and first reported by Billboard, SMP did not buy a license from him before posting the photo to Instagram. He says this alleged infringement “has harmed, and continues to harm, the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work by robbing Plaintiff of his exclusive right to license the copyrighted work for illustrative and other purposes.”

The photographer is now seeking the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for copyright infringement. An SMP spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Satterwhite is no stranger to litigation. He has previously brought more than a dozen lawsuits claiming unauthorized uses of his photos of Wonder and other famous subjects, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Brooks. Entities sued by Satterwhite have included Amazon, Complex, CBS Radio and the Berklee College of Music.

For its part, SMP usually deals more with the music side of copyright law than the business of image licensing. As the world’s largest music publisher, it often gets pulled into court when songwriters are accused of copying previous works. Such was the case last month, for example, when the owners of Bill Withers’ catalog filed a copyright lawsuit claiming “I’ve Seen It” by SMP breakthrough Olivia Dean mirrored “Just the Two of Us.”