Unflattering photo brings claim

British newspaper faces my copyright

 lawsuit over unauthorized photos of Alison

By David Baker
Posted Jan. 27, 2026

    When Alison Carey and her mother Patricia died on the same day in August 2024 it got a lot of media attention.  A search found stories here in the U.S, in the U.K. and in several other countries around the world.

   Along with these stories many of them used photographs, some taken when Alison and her sister Mariah Carey were children, and others more recently.

   One of those recent photos were two stills that someone lifted from a video I recorded in 2021 for a GoFundMe page of Alison asking for donations for replacement teeth. 

   These extremely unflattering images  - which I would never have licensed for publication - was then screen-grabbed by someone, posted on the Web and used by numerous news outlets to accompany those stories - all without my permission and without any photo credit. 

   An editor at one of those publications, the Daily Mail, immediately acknowledged the paper’s unauthorized use when contacted and offered payment. 

   But the management of another British newspaper, the Daily Mirror, which, like most of them, also has a site on the internet, ignored two requests for payment.  This after it had run the two photos with four stories in at least three of its publications in the two days after Alison died. 

   So earlier this month I decided I’d had enough of this wholesale theft of my intellectual property; on January 25. representing myself, I filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court, New York City against Reach PLC, the company that publishes dozens of newspapers in Britain, including the Mirror, the Daily Express and a celebrity magazine, OK! 

   In addition to a request for nominal payment for the photos,  I also demanding putative damages of at least $25,000.

   Punitive damages are intended to be a penalty - the equivalent of a fine - and also to deter others for the same conduct. My hope is that publishers who routinely publish photos without permission will now think twice before stealing something they have no right to print. 

  My complaint can be read or downloaded from my Dropbox account with this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ee92t5d2g3oublrn00hzb/Mirror-filed.pdf?rlkey=nelwbqzz360ghelo7t4ovuhpe&dl=0

   The suit will be served on the defendants next week. They will then have 20 days to file a response.

Depositios pending

 Carey vs Carey lawsuit update

 By David Baker

January 23, 2026

   The judge in Morgan’s defamation claim against Mariah has ruled on his motion for permission to file a second amended complaint.

   It’s a split decision; Morgan wanted to add to as a defendant add the owner of a You Tube channel - listed as “Lambily”.

   Morgan claims that a 30-minute video posted on the channel defames him; it repeats, in part, some of the same allegedly defamatory statements for which he is suing Mariah in the current lawsuit.

   Writing in her decision, Leslie A. Stroth said Morgan had presented no evidence to support his claim that “Lambily’ was in the  employ or control” of  Mariah or that she is connected to the video.

   It’s not known if Morgan has subpoenaed You Tube for the identity of ‘Lambily’’, which, if granted, might allow him to add this person as a defeated in his claim.

  The judge allowed a part of the complaint that removes as defendants the publishers of Mariah’s memoir that had earlier been denied earlier in the case. But the current judge denied Morgan’s request to add another claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress as duplicative.

  Stroth had earlier ordered that depositions in the case be completed within 90 days of this new decision -  meaning by April 15. So far, partly due to Mariah’s repeated excuses, no depositions have been taken.

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