$24M Loan Deadline Looms for Leibovitz

Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, whose portraiture has graced the covers of Vanity Fair and Vogue, may lose the copyrights to her photographs if she fails to repay a $24 million loan by the end of Tuesday.

Art Capital Group, a short-term loan provider in New York, sued her in July for breach of contract after she borrowed money from them to reimburse unpaid vendors. The company says in legal documents that failure to repay may result in them taking over her intellectual property rights, negatives to her collection of photos, and her homes in Greenwich Village and Rhinebeck, N.Y., according to TheNew York Times.

Leibovitz was also hit with a mandate to pay a 50% estate tax on several buildings left to her by her late partner, Susan Sontag. Because the couple was not legally married in the eyes of the federal government, Leibovitz has been left with tax burdens that married heterosexual couples don't typically face.