Amyl and the Sniffers had a massive 2025, now their lead singer is starting 2026 with a lawsuit.
Hell of a year for Amyl and the Sniffers – hell of a year. Massive headlining shows, a support slot on AC/DC’s tour, critical acclaim, huge album sales, buying pretty much everyone in Melbourne a beer – that’s 12 months well spent.
But into every life a little rain must fall, and it seems that lead singer and rock icon Amy Taylor is in a legal stoush with photographer Jamie Nelson. Taylor has lodged a complaint with the district court of California alleging that Nelson has been selling fine art prints of photos taken of Taylor for a Vogue photoshoot in May, 2025.
The Guardian broke the story, and you can read the full complaint here, if you’re of a mind to. It’s a bit of a saga. Essentially, Nelson was approached by Amyl and the Sniffers manager Simone Ubaldi to shoot the cover for their then upcoming album, Cartoon Darkness. But negotiations fell through in August when the band told Nelson that they did not want her using their image, likeness, brand, and what have you to promote her own business – and that includes merchandise, such as prints. Which strikes me as pretty standard work-for-hire stuff.
As the court document states, “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.”
However, in March 2025, Nelson contacted Taylor about a photoshoot for the July 2025 issue of Vogue Portugal, to which Taylor agreed. But her filing alleges that at no point did she agree to further use of the images. On September 4, Nelson sent Ubaldi and Taylor a range of images that she wanted to sell via her own online shopfronts, to which the Sniffers camp said a firm “No.”
After a bit of back and forth, Ubaldi wrote to Nelson on September 15, saying, “It was our understanding that the images were commissioned by and for Vogue Portugal, and [Ms. Taylor] agreed to do the shoot on that basis only…. We are not interested in a buyout of these images… I cannot be clearer about this – [Ms. Taylor] does not want you to sell images of her face, or her body as fine art prints. If you had been
transparent with her in advance of the shoot about your desire/intentions to sell the photos, she would have said no to the shoot. If you had any notion or desire to sell pictures of [Ms. Taylor] to recoup your costs, you should have disclosed this beforehand. We simply would have said no to the shoot.”
Nonetheless, Taylor learned on September 20 that Nelson was indeed selling her image on a range of products, including prints and a special edition zine “…that consisted exclusively of both published and unpublished images from the Vogue Portugal article. Not only was this done without Ms. Taylor’s permission and in direct contravention of her wishes, but it appears to have been done in retaliation of Ms. Taylor’s demands that Defendants stop their unlawful exploitation of Ms. Taylor’s name, image and likeness for Defendants’ commercial interest.”
At time of filing – and at the time of writing – both the prints and the zine are still for sale – and the former are US$3600 a pop. Nelson’s website also states that “the two women often mistaken as each others doppelgängers [sic]” but we couldn’t possibly comment on how creepy that is.
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