Our Plan To Save Annie Leibovitz's Finances

By John Cook, 6:21 PM on Tue Sep 8 2009, 15,920 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Annie Leibovitz has been sued—again--for passing off another photographer's work as her own. She allegedly stitched a portrait she took onto a background he took and passed it off as her own shot. Which gave us an idea! Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti sued Leibovitz last week for copyright infringement.

According to Bloomberg, Leibovitz hired Pizzetti last year to scout locations for a calendar she was shooting for the Italian coffee company LavAzza. Leibovitz did indeed shoot photos for the calendar, which was supposed to be themed "The Italian Espresso Experience," but she couldn't actually make it to Italy to photograph the models. No problem—she just shot her models in New York and then pasted them onto photos taken in scenic Italian backgrounds. No muss, no fuss, the check cleared.