A photographer by the name of Angela Ma is suing Kendall Jenner for $150,000 for allegedly committing intentional copyright infringement by posting a video of herself on Instagram. The New York-based photographer captured the brief clip in question, which shows Kendall exiting a building while she was visiting New York City last year. The model proceeded to post the video on her Instagram account on September 12th of 2019.
In the lawsuit, Ma asserts that she had already registered the clip with the U.S. Copyright Office before Kendall posted it without consultation or permission. Thus, Ma is suing both Kendall and her company Kendall Jenner Inc., for copyright infringement, claiming that the model had intentionally shared the content for free to her millions of followers "in disregard of and indifference to Plaintiff's rights." Ma is seeking in excess of $150,000, and has requested that the court order Kendall to remove the video from her Instagram and to account for all profits she made by using the video illegally.
Kendall is certainly not the first celebrity to be sued for posting content of themselves on social media. Last month, LeBron James was sued by photographer Steven Mitchell for sharing a photo of himself on Facebook that Mitchell had taken. Before that, Jennifer Lopez and her production company, Nuyorican Productions, were also hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit after she posted a photo of herself and fiancé, Alex Rodriguez, on her Instagram story. Like the Kendall case, both LeBron and J-Lo's plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 in damages.