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Legal
Rihanna and LaChapelle settle
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 20 October 2011
Rihanna has reach a settlement with photographer David LaChapelle after he sued the singer for plagiarising a shoot he did for Vogue in 2002 in her ‘S&M’ music video, directed by Melina Matsoukas.
As previously reported, in July a New York judge threw out LaChapelle’s claims of trade-dress infringement, unfair competition and unjust enrichment, but said there was a strong enough case for copyright infringement for that part of his lawsuit to proceed to court.
Commenting on the case, LaChappelle said: “It’s not personal, it’s strictly business. Musicians commonly pay to sample music or use someone’s beats and there should be no difference when sampling an artist’s visuals”.
Of course the case will now be never heard in court, and LaChappelle’s claims of copyright infringement will not be assessed. What sort of financial settlement was agreed is not known, though the photographer’s PR rep told the New York Post: “David is happy with the settlement”.
