Photographer responds to Amyl & The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor “exploitation” lawsuit with restraining order petition

Los Angeles-based photographer Jamie Nelson has filed a civil harassment restraining order petition against Amyl & The Sniffers’ vocalist Amy Taylor.

• READ MORE: How Amyl and the Sniffers found their voice: “The world’s filled with junk. I don’t wanna be contributing to that”

Per Blunt, the filing was made in the Los Angeles Superior Court on December 9 last year, with a temporary restraining order not being granted at the time. A hearing is scheduled for next Friday (February 13).

Nelson described herself as the creator and sole copyright holder of a series of photographs of Taylor called ‘Champagne Problems’, as published in Vogue Portugal in July 2025. She said her work was used without permission after one of the images was publicly shared by a third party linked to Taylor, after which she issued cease-and-desist notices to all parties, including Taylor and Amyl & The Sniffers.

In a statement given to Tone Deaf, Nelson said: “On December 4, 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”.

“On December 9, 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.”

The news comes weeks after Taylor sued Nelson over “exploitation of her image”. Taylor filed the complaint in the district court of California last year, accusing Nelson of selling pictures taken for the Vogue Portugal photoshoot as “fine art prints” without her permission.

According to court documents obtained by The Guardian, the issue began in June 2024 when the band’s manager, Simone Ubaldi, reached out to Nelson to photograph the band for their album ‘Cartoon Darkness’, which was released later that year.

However, it’s reported that the shoot fell through after the band “expressly communicated” to Nelson that they didn’t want her to use their name, image and likeness to promote her own photography business and sell merchandise, including “fine art prints”.

It’s alleged that Nelson 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”.

Taylor agreed to the photoshoot, but allegedly “at no point” authorised or licensed Nelson the right to make any other commercial use beyond the exclusive magazine issue.

Taylor alleged that Nelson was “well aware of [her] antipathy to such an expanded exploitation of her image” and that no agreement existed authorising Nelson to sell copies of the photoshoot. 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”.

This week, Amyl & The Sniffers have been in Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards. At the ceremony on Sunday (February 1), the band were up for Best Rock Performance for their single ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’, but lost out to ‘Changes (Live From Villa Park) Back to the Beginning’ by Yungblud featuring Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Bello, Adam Wakeman and II of Sleep Token.

However, they dominated the ARIA Awards in their native Australia last year. Up for six awards in total, they walked away with four – including Album of the Year and Best Group.

You can view the original article HERE.