A court ruled that a fashion blogger’s use of a copyrighted photograph on her blog constituted fair use because she paired it with a question-and-answer section.

The lawsuit revolves around an image taken by the acclaimed American photographer Melvin Sokolsky, who was best known for his iconic Bubble and Fly photo series, which featured models appearing to float above Paris and New York.

According to a report by Vital Law, in the early 1960s, Sokolsky did a photo shoot for a fashion ad campaign in McCall’s Magazine. One of the images taken during this shoot, entitled “Parker Train,” showed model Suzie Parker in a train looking straight at a uniformed military man seated across from her. After the photographer passed away in 2022, the copyright of the image was eventually assigned to a copyright management and licensing company called Sokolskyfilm, Inc. which is operated by his son, cinematographer Bing Sokolsky.

According to court documents, blogger and fashion stylist Lauren Messiah posted Sokolsky’s photograph on her blog sometime in 2009, without attribution, in a post entitled “Style Suggestions for Army Wives.” Messiah’s blog post was accompanied by a question-and-answer section or Q&A about how “army wives” should dress when greeting their husbands coming back from war.

Licensing company Sokolskyfilm, Inc. discovered Messiah’s use of the photograph in 2025 and sent her a cease-and-desist letter. Vital Law reports that Sokolskyfilm, Inc. has filed several dozen copyright infringement lawsuits since 2024. And when the blogger took the post down after the cease-and-desist letter but failed to remove the URL to the photograph itself, Sokolskyfilm, Inc. responded by suing Messiah for copyright infringement and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In response, the fashion blogger asked the court to grant summary judgment in her favor, arguing the case should be decided without trial.

A Q&A Made This Photo Usage Transformative

On June 16, the District Court for the Central District of California granted Messiah’s motion for summary judgment in the lawsuit. The court found that the fashion blogger’s use of Sokolsky’s photograph was transformative because she paired the image with a Q&A discussing how military wives should dress when welcoming their husbands home from war.

In the opinion, the court notes that Messiah published the photograph “alongside question-and-answer commentary providing fashion advice to a blog reader about what she should wear to greet her husband upon return from deployment.” The court adds that this “provides fashion guidance rather than commentary on what is already apparent from the [photograph].” Accordingly, the court reasoned, the photograph was “part of a broader work as published in the blog and accompanies fashion guidance.”

In granting summary judgment for Messiah on the Sokolskyfilm Inc.’s copyright infringement case against her, the court also found that Messiah did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by failing to attribute the late photographer. The court explained that the fashion blogger did not know who took the picture and did not routinely use photographs without attribution. The court also noted that the blogger found the picture on the internet and did not alter it or its filename. Furthermore, she also had no knowledge of the identity of the photographer behind the image.

The case comes after a veteran music photographer lost his lawsuit with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame over the museum’s “nearly exact” copy of his image of the band Van Halen after it was ruled as fair use. Photographer Neil Zlozower claimed the museum neither licensed the photo nor provided credit or a source when exhibiting his image of the band as part of an eight-foot-tall exhibit about famous guitars But a judge, while agreeing with Zlozower’s argument, ruled that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s usage qualified as “fair use” under copyright law because it was used for a purpose that was different from the original.

Image credits: All photos via court documents.

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