FAMED rapper Cardi B was discovered on Vine and Instagram and has since released several hit albums.
While her music might be popular among fans, one man has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the WAP singer over one of her explicit album covers.
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Cardi B is being sued over her 2016 album coverCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Why is Cardi B being sued for her album cover?
The album cover featured a tattooed man going down on Cardi while she drinks a Corona beer.
While the identity of the male model on the cover is unclear, the tattoos belong to Kevin Michael Brophy, who filed a lawsuit against the singer shortly after the album’s release.
He alleges that Cardi misappropriated his likeness in “a misleading, offensive, humiliating and provocatively sexual way” to launch her career, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
While Brophy might have an issue with it, Cardi’s legal team argued that the image of his tattoos is of fair use because the original image was altered and now only reflects a small portion of his actual tattoos.
Timm Gooden, the man who created the cover, testified that he googled “back tattoos” and found an image used in magazines to paste onto to cover after he was told to find another tattoo to go over his back, THR notes.
However, US District Court Judge Cormac Carney rejected the fair use argument, referencing Gooden’s testimony, and sent the case to trial.
“To constitute a transformative fair use, the revised image must have significant transformative or creative elements to make it something more than mere likeness or imitation,” Carney wrote, via THR.
“A reasonable jury in this case could conclude that there are insufficient transformative or creative elements on the GBMV1 cover to constitute a transformative use of Plaintiff’s tattoo.”
Cardi and Brophy’s legal teams then began battling it out in court on October 18, 2022, with her lawyer, Peter Anderson, arguing that Brophy and the image are unrelated because the plaintiff has tattoos on his neck and the model in the image does not.
“Brophy’s face wasn’t on the mixtape,” Anderson argued, via the Associated Press.
“She was already popular. It has nothing to do with Brophy.”
At this time, it is unclear how long the trial will last, but it comes just one month after Cardi pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and second-degree reckless endangerment stemming from 2018 strip club brawls.
How much is Kevin Michael Brophy suing for?
Brophy is hoping to walk away a millionaire at the end of this high-profile copyright-infringement lawsuit.
He is seeking $5million from Cardi, claiming that his life was disrupted and he suffered distress because of the art, according to the Associated Press.
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What did Kevin Michael Brophy say about his tattoos?
Brophy once referred to his tattoo of a tiger battling a serpent as a “Michelangelo piece,” but insists it is now “raunchy and disgusting,” according to the Associated Press.
“It felt like my Michelangelo was stolen off the wall and just literally ripped off and robbed and just put wherever these people wanted to put it,” Brophy said in court, via VIBE.
“It looks like I’m giving oral sex to somebody that’s not my wife, somebody that’s not my partner, and an image that I never signed off on, ever.”
“Being a father of two and a devoted husband and a man of faith as well, this goes against everything that I stand for,” he added.
“I would never ever sign off on something like this.”
