Kendall + Kylie licensee request damages for ‘frivolous’ copyright suit
The licensee of Kendall + Kylie Inc, a fashion brand set up by reality TV personalities Kendall and Kylie Jenner, has requested damages from a photographer and his attorney for a “frivolous” copyright lawsuit filed last year, over a line of t-shirts.
The motion, which asked for $22,000 of attorneys’ fees and costs, was filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday, March 30.
Canada Inc, the exclusive licensee of Kendall + Kylie Inc, requested the damages from photographer Al Pereira as well as his counsel Richard Liebowitz.
In the motion, Liebowitz was accused of being a “copyright troll” and “one of the most prolific filers of copyright lawsuits” in the US. The lawsuit claimed that Liebowitz has filed more than 450 copyright infringement suits since December 2015.
Pereira filed a copyright complaint against company Kendall Jenner Inc in September last year, accusing it of using his photograph of famous rappers Tupac, Notorious BIG and Redman without authorisation on t-shirts sold via the Kendall + Kylie Inc platform. Canada Inc was then named as a defendant and Kendall Jenner Inc was dismissed from the suit.
The t-shirts line featured an image of either Kendall or Kylie, superimposed over a photograph of the famous rappers and other musicians. As reported by the BBC, Kendall apologised and stopped selling the shirts after a backlash.
In the motion, the sisters claimed that only one item had been sold for $89.69 and, at the time of Pereira’s complaint, the t-shirts were not available for sale.
According to the motion, Pereira did not register the photograph at the centre of the dispute until July 2017 and the photograph had been published three years before that. The shirts were only advertised for sale for two days in June last year.
Under US copyright law, works must be registered within 30 days of their first publication to be eligible for statutory damages under the Copyright Act, the motion noted.
However, Pereira “demanded” $25,000 to settle the matter, according to the suit. The photographer has missed multiple deadlines and refiled the complaint in an effort to force Kendall Jenner Inc and those affiliated with it, including Jenner herself, to “endure the expense” of an extended dispute.
After dropping his initial complaint, the photographer filed another suit with the same allegations against Canada Inc at the US District Court for the Central District of California on Friday, March 30, the same day that the motion for costs was filed in New York.
Pereira has been accused of “dragging in” Canada Inc to prolong the “attempted extortion” of the sisters’ fashion brand.
Such “misconduct” from both the complainant and his attorney warrants monetary sanctions, according to the suit, which added that the initial against Kendall Jenner Inc was “frivolous”.
According to Jeffrey Kubulnick of Brutzkus Gubner Rozansky Seror Weber, who represents Canada Inc, neither Kylie nor Kendall Jenner has ever personally been a party “or otherwise involved in the case”.
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