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Rihanna is yet again being sued for her controversial music video for 'S&M' . Photographer Phillip Paulus is suing Rihanna for copyright infringement, claiming that she replicted his photographs in her video called 'Paperworld,' without his permission.
In a scence in the video where Rihanna is dressed in a large, fluffy gown against a wall, and is covered in plastic and surrounded by large black 'X' marks. Phillip claims one of his photographs is extremely similar in both concept and execution.
"For legitimate reasons the use of copying Paulus' work over a million times requires an agreement that protects the copyright and the achievements and creations of our client which has never been given by our client, neither to the artist Rihanna nor to her label Universal Music," Paulus' lawyer said in a statement. "According to this, the copyright laws of our client has been infringed and the worldwide million-wise exploitation of the video 'S&M' is unlawful."
In a scence in the video where Rihanna is dressed in a large, fluffy gown against a wall, and is covered in plastic and surrounded by large black 'X' marks. Phillip claims one of his photographs is extremely similar in both concept and execution.
"For legitimate reasons the use of copying Paulus' work over a million times requires an agreement that protects the copyright and the achievements and creations of our client which has never been given by our client, neither to the artist Rihanna nor to her label Universal Music," Paulus' lawyer said in a statement. "According to this, the copyright laws of our client has been infringed and the worldwide million-wise exploitation of the video 'S&M' is unlawful."
Phillip Paulus also released a statement quoting "Why a worldwide celebrity is not able to afford a creative director, who creates individual concepts and stagings, is incomprehensible for me," Paulus said. "To create new things within the creative cosmos, you can only expect this to come from a real genius, there is no doubt about that."
"...Every other creative professional should realize how supremely embarrassing it is to copy the work of colleagues from the artistic world and then to be praised for it," he said.
Rihanna was sued earlier this year by Universal. Photographer David LaChapelle claiming that the "composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting" were copy of his work.
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