The official portrait of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) had her lawsuit dismissed after claiming that a news website violated her rights by using a photo of herself about the congresswoman’s illegal parking.
Jesse Korman worked as a political campaign photographer for the AOC during his successful run for Congress in 2018. During this time, Korman shot a profile picture for the AOC campaign, which showed him looking behind the camera.
In 2021, the news agency The Washington Free Beacon used Korman’s photo of AOC in a 2021 news article, which referred to the congresswoman’s car parked illegally outside a Whole Foods store in Washington, DC. The Washington Free Beacon — a self-proclaimed conservative American political journalism website — used Korman’s AOC campaign image against a photo of his white Tesla parked illegally near a grocery store.
Four years later, in 2025, Korman filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the website, arguing that his use of the photo had significantly damaged the marketability of his image. According to the report of The Washington Free Beaconthe photographer demanded a fee of $15,000 for the use.
However, on Monday, the federal court dismissed Korman’s lawsuit against the website. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia found that The Washington Free Beacon’s The use of the image, taken by photographer Jesse Korman, was changed and protected by the doctrine of fair use.
In his opinion, Brinkema says the photographer did not use the photo for the same purpose as it was originally taken, and compares the use to that of Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup Bowls pictures. He says that while Korman’s photo was intended to portray the AOC in a positive light, The Washington Free Beacon’s he used it to criticize him. According to the judge, as a result of that change of purpose – similar to how Andy Warhol returned the symbol of soup for the interpretation of his art in the 1960s – the use of the site was “significantly changed.”
“A free beacon was not using AOC’s image to portray AOC, nor was it using the photo to promote AOC in a positive light or to run his political campaign. Instead, A free beacon used the photo as part of a political critique of the AOC, focusing on the hypocrisy of claiming to be one of the common people but in fact an elite person,” Brinkema writes. Free Beacon’s Korman’s use of the photograph closely follows the Campbell soup projection that Warhol is talking about.”
“In the 1960s, Warhol produced the series of paintings shown below depicting Campbell’s soup cans.” As the Warhol Court explained, although Warhol’s artwork imitated the copyrighted logo, his use of the copyrighted material did not ‘raise the substance of the advertising logo’ because ‘
Korman previously sued Fox News Network LLC for infringing his rights by displaying and “publicizing” his AOC photo during a television broadcast. In 2020, the news network settled a lawsuit with the photographer.
Image credits: All photos in court documents.
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