Shutterstock Shades Lady Gaga For Creating Anti-Theft Meme With… Pirated Images
Image via Tinseltown / Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock is done with Lady Gaga right now.
The photo service took to Twitter to shade the singer for using watermarked stock images in her tweet.
It all started when Lady Gaga called out leakers for pirating her yet-to-released song, Stupid Love. She urged fans to stop listening to the unauthorized release, as spreading the track would “further music piracy.”
To convey her message, she tweeted, “can y’all stop” together with two Shutterstock photos of a girl donning a ski mask while listening to music.
The irony was that the pictures were used without authorization, as well, since there was the word “Shutterstock” watermarked over the images.
This ignited comments accusing her of hypocrisy, as while she had asked fans to pay for her work, she also failed to do the same when featuring a photographer’s work without permission.
“Lady Gaga, we hear you,” Shutterstock wrote in response to her tweet. “We like artists to be paid for their work too. Here’s a link to the photographer’s work where you can license these images.”
Unfortunately, Lady Gaga’s fans were unhappy with the stock photo company’s tweet, accusing the brand of trying to take advantage of the pop queen’s celebrity status.
The photographer behind the stock photos, however, did not seem to have a problem with Lady Gaga using the photo. Richard Nelson even tweeted out a non-watermarked version of his photos so that she could use them freely.
“Lady Gaga making one on my old stock photos viral,” Nelson said. “I just had to share.”
Nevertheless, Shutterstock got the support of other photographers, who agreed that copyright should be “respected and defended” across the creative sphere.
can y’all stop pic.twitter.com/1jvZLdY6jV
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) January 23, 2020
.@ladygaga We hear you! We like artists to be paid for their work too. Here's a link to the photographer's work where you can license these quality images: https://t.co/F37wsUBre8 and https://t.co/lljeK1HgkB 😉
— Shutterstock (@Shutterstock) January 23, 2020
funny how you‘re only interested when it’s a viral tweet huh and the watermark is right there pic.twitter.com/L3NW3NpZm0
— 𝒇𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒉 (@bloodyfarah) January 23, 2020
@ladygaga As the photographer of this picture, I've got you. 🤣🤩😘 pic.twitter.com/UtY1DudXkB
— Richard Nelson, Children's Author ✍️😊 (@ImRichardNelson) January 24, 2020
@ladygaga making one of my old stock photos viral. Hahaha. I just had to share. https://t.co/wBWRP6csqN https://t.co/a6h5tVwUeh
— Richard Nelson, Children's Author ✍️😊 (@ImRichardNelson) January 23, 2020
[via PetaPixel, opening image via Tinseltown / Shutterstock.com]
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