The estate of the Notorious BIG has sued an Illinois-based company called iCanvas Inc over its sale of canvas art prints featuring the late rapper, including one that used an iconic photo taken just days before he was murdered in 1997.
The prints infringe copyright, trademarks and publicity rights, according to a lawsuit that also names as defendants various major US retailers that have allegedly sold iCanvas prints, including Home Depot, Nordstrom and Target.
The estate is joined by merch company Republic and photographer Barron Claiborne in filing the lawsuit, although they say that they “represent only a small fraction of the victims of a multi-year unlawful campaign” pursued by iCanvas, because the company has also sold prints featuring a stack of other musicians and celebrities, including Beyonce, Prince, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog and LL Cool J.
Based on their experiences, and “those of certain others contacted”, the estate says it expects “many of the images of and by others” used in iCanvas prints were “subject to intellectual property and personality rights protections” and that “defendants did not obtain authorisation to use them”.
Claiborne took photos of the Notorious BIG, real name Christopher Wallace, just three days before his death. The key photo exploited by iCanvas is titled ‘King Of New York’ and, explains the lawsuit, shows the rapper “wearing a plastic crown in front of a deep red backdrop”.
The image, the legal filing adds, “is considered to be one of the most iconic photographs of the late Twentieth Century and one of the most famous hip hop images”. In fact, “it has been heralded as the ‘Mona Lisa of hip hop’”.
Illustrating how famous the image is, the lawsuit adds, “the plastic crown used in the portraits, which was purchased by Mr Claiborne for $6.00 in 1997, sold for $595,000 at Sotheby’s first hip-hop auction in 2020”.
By selling canvas prints of that image, iCanvas “specifically chose to use Mr Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness and related marks, and Mr Claiborne’s photograph series, in an attempt to capitalise on their fame and extraordinary financial value”.
It did so without permission from either the estate or the photographer, the lawsuit concludes, meaning
the company infringed Claiborne’s copyright and the late Wallace’s trademarks and publicity rights.
The estate, Republic and Claiborne now want an injunction from the court banning iCanvas from making and selling any goods featuring Wallace and, of course, lots and lots of damages.