Man who sued over Cardi B mixtape cover featuring his tattoo wants another trial
completemusicupdate.comThe man who unsuccessfully sued Cardi B over her use of a photo of his distinctive back tattoo on the artwork for a 2016 mixtape has requested another trial to consider his legal claim.
That’s based on the argument two prejudicial errors of law occurred during the original court hearing.Kevin Brophy sued Cardi B – real name Belcalis Almánzar – in 2017.
A photo of his distinctive tattoo was Photoshopped onto the cover of the ‘Gangsta Bitch Music Vol 1’ mixtape, so that it appeared on the back of a man who was positioned to look like he was performing oral sex on the rapper.Neither Almánzar nor her team got permission from Brophy to use the image of his tattoo.
He argued that people assumed it was him in the photo, and – given the explicit nature of the artwork – that had resulted in him facing frequent “uncomfortable comments, questions, and ridicule from community members and family”.Legally speaking, he reckoned his publicity rights had been infringed by the authorised use of his image.In the resulting court case there was much debate over whether Almánzar had any real involvement in the creation of the artwork; whether anyone had actually connected Brophy to the image before he started talking about it; and – perhaps most importantly – whether the use of Brophy’s tattoo design on the mixtape cover was ‘fair and transformative use’ and therefore allowed under US free speech laws.The jury hearing the case ultimately sided with Almánzar, concluding that Brophy’s publicity rights had not been infringed by the mixtape artwork.
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