50 Cent Sued For Posting Photos of Himself

Life’s not bad when you can go from a grimy pre-gentrified section of Queens, New York to a court where your biggest problems are fighting photographers over photo licensing. 50 Cent recently fell under fire for using photos of himself without the photographer’s permission. Christopher Pasatieri was the man behind the camera and he’s upset the rapper used his photos to promote his personal line of headphones. In all of my travels, I’ve never seen anyone use any other headphones outside of bass lines matter Beats brand or Bose. I can see why he was offended.

Christopher Pasatieri — who says he’s a professional photographer — says he photographed 50 Cent and some of his shots ended up on the rapper’s Instagram page, each generating over 42,000 likes. In docs, obtained by TMZ, Pasatieri submitted a screen shot of the IG posts that shows Fiddy pimping his SMS Audio headphones and TV show, “Power.” Pasatieri says the rapper never licensed the photos or asked for permission to post them on IG.

It’s unbelievable that photography has been reduced down to nothing more than how popular your subject is rather than the skill it took to take the photo. Thanks to iPhones and Instagram everyone is a certified photographer opportunistically looking for a pending payday. No need to comprehend composition or understand ISO levels anymore. Where do we draw the line? I sympathize with Chris’ angle as a creative and wanting to be reimbursed for his photos, but celebrity photographers are nothing without celebrities. And imagine if celebrities started selling selfies and suing everyone else who didn’t properly purchase them. I enjoy royalty free nip slips from celebrities without the fear of a lawsuit. 

Photo Credit: Getty Images