A federal judge has approved Cardi B’s victory at a recent civil trial in Santa Ana, California where she was found not guilty of using the portion of the plaintiff’s back tattoo on the cover of her mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1.
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According to Rolling Stone, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled on Wednesday that Kevin Brophy’s request to overturn the Oct. 21 jury verdict was filed too late and lacked legitimacy. Previously, Brophy filed a $5 million lawsuit against Cardi B, claiming his back tattoo had been misappropriated and later asked the jury to overturn their verdict because they allegedly misapplied the law, claiming it was up to the court to correct their error.
In his ruling, Carney stated that Brophy’s lawyers failed to preserve their right to file the Rule 50 motion before the case was submitted to the jury for deliberation. “The untimeliness of Brophy’s Rule 50 is reason enough to deny it. But the motion also wants for substantive merit,” he wrote in a statement.
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He added that the cover of GBM Vol. 1 shows a non-white male model’s back tattoo was covered up with a portion of Brophy’s tiger and serpent tattoo copied from the internet. Brophy and Cardi’s former manager testified that the male model appears to be non-white with black hair while Brophy is white with a shaved head. The model’s face is also covered in the image as he appears to perform oral sex on the rapper.
“The jury had an ample basis for its verdict. For example, the jury could have reasonably concluded that the back tattoo on the model on the mixtape cover at issue in this suit was not sufficiently identifiable with Brophy to constitute misappropriation of his likeness or depiction in a false light.’
He noted that the tattoo played a minor role in the overall message of the mixtape cover as the model’s purpose was a play on sexual politics among men and women. Cardi B previously testified in court that the image was to show reverse gender roles which the jury used as evidence for their deliberations. She also confirmed that the mixtape cover artist photoshopped the tattoo without her knowledge and did not include his “Born to Lose” neck tattoo.
Additionally, Brophy was ordered to pay for Cardi B’s legal fees and he also testified that between the time he filed the lawsuit, no one approached him about the cover other than his tattoo artist.