For over a year, Cardi B has been facing a lawsuit from the model Kevin Brophy Jr. over the appearance of his back tattoo on the artwork of Cardi B’s debut 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1.
The guy going down on Cardi B on her mixtape cover is deeply offended because he claims he never posed for the photo, neither did he ever sign off on his image being used in such a sexual manner.
Brophy claimed that Cardi B used his likeness without as her mixtape artwork his permission; in “a misleading, offensive, humiliating and provocatively sexual way”.
On Friday, a judge rejected Cardi’s argument that the image is protected under transformative fair use; ruling that the case will head to a jury trial, The Hollywood Reporter reports.
“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,” U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney wrote, according to 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 B’s prospective tattoo trial adds to other pending legal actions over the use of tattoos; including one against the WWE for copying a wrestler’s tattoo for video games.
This is not the first time Cardi B has had run-ins with the law. Last year, the WAP hitmaker faced assault charges; after she allegedly ordered an attack on two sisters; one of whom had an affair with her serial cheater of a husband, Offset.
