Forever 21 is being sued by yet another photographer and this time, Urban Outfitters is also named as an offender.
Danny Clinch is taking the two retail giants and three other parties (including Tupac’s official merchandise licensing company) to court over their use of two of his photos of Tupac Shakur, according to Consumerist. The lawsuit was filed in New York on May 31 and claims the images in question were licensed to Planet Productions in 2012 by Amaru/AWA Merchandising in an agreement that stated Amaru was acting on behalf of those who owned the copyrights for the pictures.
Clinch, who copyrighted his photos in 2002, says that he did not give consent to Amaru to license the images. He goes on to say Planet did not use due diligence in getting the proper information regarding ownership of the copyrights. Instead, it went ahead and made a deal with manufacturing company Bioworld, who created and sold the shirts to Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters. One of the products is a jersey featuring an image from a cover shoot for a 1996 edition of Rolling Stone.
The damages are in excess of $600,000 between licensing fees and revenue from Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters selling the shirts. Clinch is seeking to be compensated accordingly and asking the remaining inventory featuring the images be destroyed.
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Forever 21 has been in trouble before over several music-related products, including a T-shirt featuring Ice Cube. Within the past year, they have faced controversy for seemingly ripping off Rihanna’s Fenty Puma line and Kanye West’s Pablo merchandise.
Read the entire lawsuit from Danny Clinch over two Tupac images here.
