AOC Photographer Loses Copyright Case Over Image Utilized in Unlawful Parking Story

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) official marketing campaign photographer had his lawsuit dismissed after claiming a information web site infringed his copyright through the use of a cutout of his portrait in protection of the congresswoman’s unlawful parking.

Jesse Korman served because the political marketing campaign photographer for AOC throughout her profitable run for Congress in 2018. During this time, Korman shot the marketing campaign’s defining portrait of AOC, which depicted her gazing previous the digital camera.

In 2021, information outlet The Washington Free Beacon used Korman’s {photograph} of AOC in a 2021 news article, which coated the congresswoman’s automobile parked illegally outdoors a Whole Foods retailer in Washington, D.C. The Washington Free Beacon — an American political journalism web site which identifies itself as conservative — used a cutout of Korman’s marketing campaign portrait of AOC in opposition to a photograph of her white Tesla illegally parked close to the grocery retailer.

Four years later, in 2025, Korman filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in opposition to the web site, arguing that his use of the {photograph} had considerably broken the marketplace for his picture. According to a report by The Washington Free Beacon, the photographer demanded a charge of $15,000 for the utilization.

However, on Monday, a federal court dismissed Korman’s case in opposition to the web site. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, discovered that The Washington Free Beacon’s use of the picture, taken by photographer Jesse Korman, was transformative and guarded by the doctrine of truthful use.

In her opinion, Brinkema says the information outlet didn’t use the picture for a similar function it was initially taken, and in contrast the utilization to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans work. She states that whereas Korman’s {photograph} was meant to painting AOC in a optimistic means, The Washington Free Beacon’s was utilizing it to criticize her. According to the decide, due to that shift in function — just like how Andy Warhol repurposed a soup brand for commentary in his artwork within the Sixties — the web site’s utilization was “plainly transformative.”

“Free Beacon was not using the image of AOC to depict AOC, nor was it using the photograph to portray AOC in a positive light or to facilitate her political campaign. Rather, Free Beacon used the photograph as part of its criticism of AOC’s politics, focusing on the hypocrisy of claiming to be one of the common folk but actually being an elitist,” Brinkema writes. “In this sense, Free Beacon’s use of Korman’s photograph most closely follows the Campbell’s soup hypothetical discussed in Warhol.”

“In the 1960s, Warhol produced the series of paintings shown below depicting Campbell’s soup cans. As the Warhol Court explained, although Warhol’s artwork replicates a copyrighted logo, his use of the copyrighted material did ‘not supersede the objects of the advertising logo’ because ‘[t]he purpose of Campbell’s logo [was] to advertise soup,’ whereas ‘Warhol’s canvases … use[d] Campbell’s copyrighted work for an artistic commentary on consumerism, a purpose that is orthogonal to advertising soup.’”

The decide concludes: “Similarly, because Free Beacon’s use of the AOC photograph is orthogonal to the photograph’s original purpose, Free Beacon’s use of Korman’s photograph was transformative.”

In her opinion, Brinkema argues that the information outlet’s reporting, which makes use of images to criticize public figures, is a transparent instance of reliable political commentary. The decide says that requiring journalists to ask permission or pay to make use of such images would undermine free speech and make it more durable to report and critique individuals in energy.

“Here, Free Beacon’s articles and accompanying images are paradigmatic examples of social commentary and political criticism,” Brinkema writes. “Imposing a requirement on journalists to receive permission from, and pay royalties to, copyright holders to use their photographs as part of political criticism regarding the public figures depicted would frustrate the balance Congress struck between robust copyright protections and the free flow of ideas.”

Korman beforehand sued Fox News Network LLC for infringing his copyright by reproducing and “publicly displaying” his picture of AOC throughout a tv broadcast. In 2020, the information community settled the lawsuit with the photographer.

Image credit: All images through court documents.