{"id":55486,"date":"2026-08-24T20:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/55486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:05:19","slug":"oasis-photograph-sparks-copyright-lawsuit-over-1-9m-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/55486\/","title":{"rendered":"Oasis Photograph Sparks Copyright Lawsuit Over $1.9M Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A music photographer says artist Elizabeth Peyton turned his photo of Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher kissing into a painting, which sold at Sotheby\u2019s for $1.92 million.<\/p>\n

Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis have spent three decades fighting with each other. Now a photograph of them kissing has started one too.<\/p>\n

Music photographer Justin Thomas<\/a> took the photo at an Earls Court afterparty in 1995, at the height of Oasis\u2019s Britpop reign<\/a> and just after (What\u2019s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/a> turned the band into a global phenomenon. Earlier that year, Noel had reportedly hit Liam over the head with a cricket bat<\/a> during the album\u2019s recording sessions, so the kiss wasn\u2019t exactly a representative sample of Gallagher family life.<\/p>\n

That contrast\u2014two famously combative rock stars caught in a moment of seemingly genuine tenderness\u2014is a big part of what makes the image so memorable. Thomas later ran a black-and-white version on the cover of his photo book, How Does It Feel? \u2013 Oasis 1995\/2002<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What Thomas says he didn\u2019t know was that, back in 1996, the American painter Elizabeth Peyton<\/a> had made an oil painting of the very same kiss.<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side:<\/p>\n

The photograph on the cover of Justin Thomas\u2019s book How Does It Feel? (L) and Elizabeth Peyton\u2019s Earl\u2019s Court (Liam + Noel), 1996 (R)<\/p>\n

Peyton is a prominent contemporary artist who has long worked from photographs and other found images. Her Earl\u2019s Court (Liam + Noel)<\/a> depicts the brothers from the same angle and in the same pose as Thomas\u2019s photo, right down to the ring on Liam\u2019s hand near Noel\u2019s collar. Her source has never exactly been a state secret. An Irish Examiner preview of the painting\u2019s May 2026 auction<\/a> described Peyton as \u201cappropriating a photograph,\u201d while art advisor Todd Levin\u2014who says he placed the painting with a collector back in 1998, for $12,000\u2014recently posted the two images side by side on Instagram<\/a> and wrote that the painting \u201creproduces a photograph\u201d of the Gallaghers.<\/p>\n

Here are the original color photograph and Peyton\u2019s painting side by side:<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side<\/p>\n

Justin Thomas\u2019s 1995 original color photograph of Liam and Noel Gallagher (L) and Elizabeth Peyton\u2019s Earl\u2019s Court (Liam + Noel), 1996 (R)<\/p>\n

Thomas, who now lives in Spain, says he\u2019d never heard of Peyton or her painting until earlier this year, when Sotheby\u2019s came calling.<\/p>\n

In April, the auction house was preparing to sell<\/a> Earl\u2019s Court (Liam + Noel) in its May contemporary evening sale in New York, where the painting carried an estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million. About a month before the sale, a Sotheby\u2019s rep asked to license Thomas\u2019s photograph as a \u201ccomparative illustration\u201d for an essay in its online catalog. Thomas agreed to $2,000 for a year of digital use plus two weeks on a print lot card. Then, after about a week, the photo suddenly disappeared. Sotheby\u2019s told him it had pulled the image \u201cat the request of the artist\u2019s representative,\u201d and, since it hadn\u2019t gotten the full use it expected, asked whether he\u2019d take less money. Thomas agreed to $1,500.<\/p>\n

Then he saw the painting. He concluded that Peyton\u2019s representative wanted his photo out of the catalog to \u201chide the origins\u201d of what he calls \u201cjust a slavish copy\u201d of his original photo. (Sotheby\u2019s isn\u2019t always so cagey about sources: at a June 2025 sale it openly credited photographer Stefan De Batselier<\/a> for a different Peyton painting of the Gallaghers; apparently no one sued over that one.)<\/p>\n

The sale went forward without Thomas\u2019s photograph. The painting brought in $1.92 million with fees.<\/p>\n

Last week, Thomas filed a copyright infringement lawsuit<\/a> in the Southern District of New York against Peyton, Sotheby\u2019s, and David Zwirner Gallery, which represents Peyton and displays the painting on its website<\/a>. He says Peyton copied virtually every significant element of his photograph: the composition, the brothers\u2019 poses and expressions, the tilt of each head, the hair, the hands, the lighting, even the placement of Liam\u2019s ring near Noel\u2019s collar\u2014and changed only the cropping, the colors, and the medium.<\/p>\n

The complaint calls the painting an unauthorized derivative work<\/a>, and adds claims against Zwirner and Sotheby\u2019s for reproducing, displaying and distributing it.<\/p>\n

Thomas isn\u2019t the first rock photographer to take issue with Peyton\u2019s source material. In 2014, Sex Pistols photographer Dennis Morris sued her over drawings based on his photos of Sid Vicious and John Lydon. These were loose, gestural charcoals that borrowed the pose and not much else. Peyton denied infringement and asserted a fair use defense, and the case soon settled out of court.<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side<\/p>\n

Dennis Morris\u2019s photograph of Sid Vicious (L) and Elizabeth Peyton\u2019s rendering of the same image (R), from Morris\u2019s 2014 copyright infringement complaint.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Morris threatened to sue Peyton again, this time over John Lydon, Destroyed, which was subsequently pulled from a planned Sotheby\u2019s sale<\/a> at the consignor\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dennis Morris\u2019s 1977 photograph of John Lydon, from his book Destroy (L), and Elizabeth Peyton\u2019s John Lydon, Destroyed (R). The painting was pulled from a 2016 Sotheby\u2019s sale after Morris threatened to sue.<\/p>\n

Copying Isn\u2019t Infringement<\/p>\n

At this point, it\u2019s probably worth reminding everyone that copying and copyright infringement aren\u2019t the same thing. Otherwise, this would be a really short article.<\/p>\n

Copying still matters, of course. When a defendant denies using a plaintiff\u2019s work, courts infer copying from access plus similarities too close to write off as coincidence. Here, that doesn\u2019t seem particularly controversial. All the talk about Peyton \u201cappropriating\u201d or \u201creproducing\u201d Thomas\u2019s photograph goes a long way toward establishing that she actually copied it, and the side-by-side makes independent creation a tough sell.<\/p>\n

But the Copyright Act doesn\u2019t prohibit all copying, only the unlawful appropriation of protected expression. Thomas has no exclusive right to Liam and Noel Gallagher\u2019s faces, their kiss, or the moment itself. What he owns is his particular expression of that moment: the framing, the angle, the lighting, the timing and other creative choices that went into capturing it. The question is how much of that Peyton actually took, and the answer is messier than the side-by-side suggests.<\/p>\n

The gap between copying and unlawful copying can produce some counterintuitive results. Just ask photographer Jeffrey Sedlik.<\/p>\n

In Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg<\/a>, nobody disputed that Kat Von D copied Sedlik\u2019s photo of Miles Davis to make a tattoo. She traced the image, transferred a stencil to her friend\u2019s arm and inked it with the photo right beside her\u2014a process her shop cheerfully described as producing a result \u201c100% exactly the same.\u201d A Los Angeles jury still took about two hours to decide the tattoo wasn\u2019t substantially similar to the photograph<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Instagram<\/p>\n

Kat Von D at work on the Miles Davis tattoo, via Instagram<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a caveat. Sedlik was tried under the Ninth Circuit\u2019s much-maligned \u201ctotal concept and feel\u201d test<\/a>, which asks jurors to make a subjective comparison without dissecting the works into protected and unprotected elements. The Ninth Circuit is now reconsidering that test en banc<\/a>, with oral argument scheduled for September 29.<\/p>\n

Thomas sued in New York, where the Second Circuit takes a somewhat different approach. Its \u201cmore discerning ordinary observer\u201d test<\/a> focuses the comparison on protectable expression while still considering the work as a whole.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a different test, but the underlying problem is the same. Peyton will say the obvious similarities flow from things copyright doesn\u2019t protect, and Thomas will insist that she took far more than that. Some might say his side-by-side looks damning. Sedlik\u2019s looked worse, and he still lost.<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side<\/p>\n

Jeff Sedlik\u2019s photo of Miles Davis (L) and Kat Von D\u2019s tattoo of it (R)<\/p>\n

The Warhol Problem<\/p>\n

Even if Thomas establishes unlawful appropriation, Peyton still has a fair use defense. And if \u201cfamous artist turns a photographer\u2019s portrait of a famous musician into a far more valuable work of art\u201d sounds familiar, it should.<\/p>\n

In Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith<\/a>, Lynn Goldsmith photographed Prince; Andy Warhol used her photograph to create his Prince Series. But the Supreme Court didn\u2019t decide whether Warhol infringed by creating those works. It looked at one later use: the Warhol Foundation\u2019s licensing of Orange Prince to Cond\u00e9 Nast for a magazine tribute. Because Goldsmith licensed Prince photos to magazines too, the Court found the two uses served the same commercial purpose, and rejected the idea that Warhol\u2019s added expression, by itself, was enough to make the Foundation\u2019s use transformative.<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side:<\/p>\n

Lynn Goldsmith\u2019s 1981 photograph of Prince (L) and Cond\u00e9 Nast\u2019s 2016 tribute magazine featuring Warhol\u2019s Orange Prince<\/p>\n

But the Court also stressed that other uses might come out differently. Displaying Warhol\u2019s work in a museum or reproducing it in a book on twentieth-century art \u201cmight well point to fair use.\u201d Each challenged use, the Court emphasized, \u201cmust be assessed on its own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

That gives both sides something to work with here. Turning a photograph into an oil painting doesn\u2019t automatically give the painting a new purpose. But creating or displaying a painting as a work of fine art presents a different fair use question from licensing an image as a commercial substitute for a photograph.<\/p>\n

Which is where that $1.92 million auction price helps Thomas less than it might seem. Peyton painted Earl\u2019s Court thirty years ago, and the Sotheby\u2019s transaction was a resale of the physical painting on behalf of its current owner, not a license of Peyton\u2019s image. Owning the painting is separate from owning the copyright embodied in it, a distinction the art world has occasionally blurred. Sotheby\u2019s separate reproductions of the painting in connection with the auction, and Zwirner\u2019s display of it on its website, present different uses. After Warhol, each of those uses has to be judged on its own terms.<\/p>\n

The thirty-year gap raises obvious statute-of-limitations questions too, although Thomas says he only discovered Peyton\u2019s painting this year. I\u2019ll save that rabbit hole for another day.<\/p>\n

One last coincidence is too good to skip. Thomas v. Peyton was assigned to Judge John Koeltl, the same judge who ruled in 2019 that Warhol\u2019s Prince Series was transformative and handed the Warhol Foundation summary judgment on fair use. The Second Circuit reversed, and the case went on to produce the Supreme Court decision that will now frame Peyton\u2019s defense. Thirty years after Peyton painted the Gallaghers, Judge Koeltl gets another famous artist, another photographer, and another portrait of a famous musician. It\u2019s not quite a reunion tour, but this is copyright law. We\u2019ll take what we can get.<\/p>\n

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below or @copyrightlately<\/a> on social media. In the meantime, you can read Thomas\u2019s complaint here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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