Justin Goldman filed the lawsuit after he snapped an image of New England Patriots quarterback Brady, Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge and others on a street in 2016. Shortly thereafter, he uploaded the photo to Snapchat. The photo then went viral, with others uploading it to Twitter. Subsequently, various news organizations embedded the tweets with the image in stories about whether the Celtics would successfully recruit basketball player Kevin Durant, and if Brady would help to seal the deal. Goldman sued some of these news outlets.