Richard Liebowitz

A Long Island native, Liebowitz worked as an intern for veteran New York press photographer Bruce Cotler. His experience with Cotler, about which he wrote a book,[4] and as a member of the New York Press Photographers Association motivated Liebowitz to pursue a career in copyright law.[2]

After graduating from Hofstra University Law School, he was admitted to the New York bar in 2015,[5] established his practice in New York and filed his first lawsuit in January 2016. He works on a contingency basis and has filed, on average, about five lawsuits per week.[2] Contrary to other copyright lawyers, his practice is to immediately file suit rather than pursue a settlement, and to claim statutory damages far in excess of the images' ordinary licensing prices.[2]

Liebowitz's approach to copyright litigation earned him a reputation as "the scourge of the media industry (...) and the salvation of the underpaid photographer", according to Slate.[2] Media organizations and their lawyers have asserted that Liebowitz is abusing the legal system by overloading the courts with dubious cases in which he attempts to leverage mistakes by overworked editorial staff into financial windfalls.[2]

For his part, Liebowitz has argued that copyright law is the only tool that photographers have to protect their rights and livelihood in a digital media environment in which images are often reused without regard to proper licensing.[2] However, in one case, a client was forced to repay $120,000 in legal bills to several media outlets Liebowitz sued on his behalf. [6]

Courts have repeatedly sanctioned Liebowitz for his approach to legal practice.[7] In one case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered Liebowitz's client to pay the defendant's legal fees for what the judge considered "frivolous litigation",[2] and in another, Judge Denise Cote determined that Liebowitz was a "copyright troll", fined him and imposed ethics classes on him.[2][8]

In 2019 a judge observed that "there is a growing body of law in this District" – the Southern District of New York – "devoted to the question of whether and when to impose sanctions on Mr. Liebowitz".[9] In September 2019, Liebowitz was held in contempt of court by Judge Cathy Seibel[10] for failure to attend court.[11][12]