A few months after Supermodel Gigi Hadid was slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit for sharing paparazzi snap without the consent, a federal court now has tossed the lawsuit.
As per the documents procured by People, US District Judge Pamela Chen said that Xclusive-Lee Inc., an independent photo agency company that originally owned the photo of the supermodel could not sue for direct copyright infringement as it failed to demonstrate that "the defendant has actually copied the plaintiff's work; and the copying is illegal because a substantial similarity exists between the defendant's work and the protectable elements of the plaintiff's work."
"We are pleased that the Court granted our motion to dismiss this meritless case. The Court's decision recognized this case for what it was an effort to extract a settlement from Ms. Hadid with little regard for the basic requirements of copyright law," John Quinn, the attorney representing Gigi Hadid in the case, said in a statement to People.
The case was submitted in the court in January this year by Xclusive as Hadid shared a photo in October last year on Instagram without the photographer's permission, according to court documents obtained by People.
The obtained documents showed that the photo has approximately 1.6 million people comment or likes on the photo within the first four days after the model posted it. Thereafter the company was seeking damages for copyright infringement, as well as any profits derived from the image.
Following the issue, Gigi Hadid removed the snap from her social media handle. However, the documents also mentioned that Xclusive's photo is not the only one that the model has posted unlicensed images. "As of the date of this filing, Hadid's Instagram account includes at least fifty examples of uncredited photographs of Hadid in public, at press events, or on the runway," the documents read.
Xclusive also claimed that the model was well aware that she is doing wrong by posting an unaccredited photo. Hadid also had a similar incident back in the year 2017, which she resolved with photographer Peter Cepeda outside of court.
( With inputs from ANI )