Beyonce faces lawsuit over ‘Lemonade’ trailer
10 June 2016 Entertainment News
Fourth Estate Staff
Manhattan, NY, United States (4E) – Singer Beyonce has been slammed with a federal lawsuit by an independent filmmaker on Wednesday as she is alleged of stealing ideas from the 2014 short film he made in order to create the trailer for the visual album of the songstress entitled “Lemonade.”
The filmmaker was identified as Matthew Fulks and he alleged in his lawsuit that his 2014 short film called “Palinoia” was seen by the team members of Beyonce who worked on the video for “Lemonade.” The video for Beyonce’s album was said to be created months after the team saw “Palinoia” and that both films were visually similar.
The defendants named by the plaintiff, who lives in Louisville, Kentucky, are Parkwood Entertainment, Beyonce’s management company, Sony Music Entertainment, Columbia Recording Corporation, and Beyonce herself. He believes that they infringed on his copyright.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and Fulks points to nine instances wherein his film and the trailer were similar. He pointed out that his film and the trailer for “Lemonade” had similar mood, setting, fonts, and pace. It was not said in the lawsuit how much is he seeking in monetary damages.
Fulks also said in the lawsuit that he had a series of email exchanges with Bran Younce , the Senior Vice President of Video and Content Production at Columbia. It is the company that Beyonce is currently signed with. Younce was credited for working on the 2013 album of Beyonce.
The filmmaker also said that he was contacted by manager Chris Thomas about producing a video for the duo MS MR, who are also signed to Columbia. Thomas then emailed links of Fulk’s work including “Palinoia” to Brian Beck. Beck then forwarded the link to Younce .
Younce contacted Fulks to “submit additional storyboards and a development plan for consideration by Columbia.” It was not clear what happened to their communication after that as it was not detailed in the lawsuit.
Beyonce or her team has not responded to the lawsuit yet.
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