‘Salt Bae’ slapped with $5 mln copyright suit over artwork of chef

Turkish butcher-turned-celebrity restauranteur Nusret Gökçe, internationally known as Salt Bae for his meat-cutting and salt-drizzling skills has been hit with a $5 million copyright infringement lawsuit by a New York artist, who alleges the social media star used his artwork all over the world without permission.

William Hicks says he and fellow artist Joseph Iurato were hired by Gökçe in September 2017 to make a mural of the restaurateur "in his signature salt-sprinkling pose," according to a Manhattan federal lawsuit.

The first work was displayed in Gökçe's Miami steakhouse and subsequent commissioned stencil murals also went up at his restaurants in Doha, Dubai and New York, the court papers say.

Only Hicks then found out in early 2020 that Gökçe and his companies were using the same image around the world in window displays, digital signs, menus, wipes, takeout bags and on the label for his line of seasonings, all without the artist's permission, the court documents allege.

"Defendants were engaging in widespread, unauthorized distribution and use of the original works in, among other places, Nusr-et's steakhouses and Saltbae Burger restaurants in New York, Dubai and Istanbul," the suit charges.

"Defendants also unilaterally decided that they would instead unlawfully adapt, create, and distribute unauthorized derivative versions of the original works to display in Nusr-et steakhouse locations in at least Abu Dhabi, Ankara, [Istanbul's] Etiler, [Greece's] Mykonos, and [Turkey's] Bodrum Yalıkavak Marina," the court documents claim.

Hicks allegedly sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that they stop using the original artworks in April 2020.

But Gökçe and the companies "doubled down...

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