A US-based photographer has filed a civil harassment restraining order petition against Amyl and the Sniffers’ frontwoman Amy Taylor.
Per Blunt, the petition was filed by photographer Jamie Nelson in December in the LA Superior Court. A temporary restraining order was not granted at the time, with a hearing scheduled for February 13th.
Nelson described herself as the creator and sole copyright holder of a photographic series of Taylor titled Champagne Problems, which was published in Vogue Portugal in July 2025. She said her work was used without permission after one of the images was shared publicly by a third party linked to Taylor, prompting her to issue cease-and-desist notices to all parties, including Taylor and Amyl and the Sniffers.
“On December 4th, 2025, after a third party related to Amy Taylor publicly posted one of my copyrighted images without my permission, I issued cease-and-desist notices to the third party, Amy Taylor, and Amyl and the Sniffers,” she said in the statement provided to Tone Deaf.
“On December 9th, 2025, I sought court protection by filing a Civil Harassment Restraining Order in Los Angeles Superior Court against Amy Taylor. That matter remains pending, with a hearing scheduled for February 13th, 2026. Given the active proceedings, I am limiting public comment to factual context.”
A civil action lawsuit from Taylor over the photographs followed, after Nelson allegedly sold a selection of them as “fine art prints” on her website. According to Taylor, no agreement existed authorising Nelson to sell copies.
“On December 22th, 2025, a civil action was filed against me. The matter concerns my rights as the copyright holder with respect to the sale of fine-art prints of my own work. I contest the allegations and will address them through the appropriate legal process. As of today, I have not been served, and no hearings have been scheduled in that matter,” Nelson continued.
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The issue between Nelson and Taylor began in July 2024, when Amyl and the Sniffers’ manager, Simone Ubaldi, reached out to Nelson to photograph them for their album Cartoon Darkness. The shoot later fell through after they “expressly communicated” to Nelson that they didn’t want her to use the band’s name, image, and likeness to promote her own business.
“As explained to Ms. Nelson, the band was zealously protective of their image and did not want these used for non-band-sanctioned, private commercial purposes such as Ms. Nelson had proposed. As a result, the photo shoot was never conducted,” the complaint read.
Nelson allegedly contacted Taylor months later, requesting to photograph her “with the express intention that the resulting images … would be published exclusively in the July 2025 issue of Vogue Portugal,” the documents claimed.
Taylor agreed, but allegedly “at no point” authorised or licensed Nelson the right to make any other commercial use beyond the magazine issue. After receiving Nelson’s proposal to sell the “fine art prints”, Ubaldi claimed to have told Nelson that Taylor objected to such use of her image and that “the only permitted use of the same had been for inclusion in Vogue Portugal.”
Per the documents, Nelson continued to seek a license from Taylor on multiple occasions, to which Taylor “rejected each such request, and no such agreement was ever reached.” Filings go on to say that later in September, Taylor discovered that Nelson was selling “fine art prints” containing the pictures on her website, and using the photos to promote her commercial enterprises.
At the time of writing, neither legal dispute has been settled in court.
