Jared Leto loses lawsuit against TMZ over video dissing Taylor Swift
After TMZ posted a video of Jared Leto listening to—and dissing—the songs from Taylor Swift’s 1989, Leto rebutted with a lawsuit against TMZ, which the judge overturned after concluding that Leto never owned the rights to the video.
Leto filed a lawsuit against TMZ back in January, claiming the site infringed on Leto’s copyright ownership of the video. The court documents state that Leto “sustained and will continue to sustain substantial injury, including damge to its and Mr. Leto’s business, reutation and goodwill,” while TMZ “unlawfully and wrongfully derived income and profits from their infringing acts.”
Read more: Jared Leto issues public apology to Taylor Swift
However, the court document released today says that Leto did not require Naeem Munaf, the videographer who shot the footage and sent it to TMZ, to sign any agreements prior to shooting “indicating that the work would be a work made for hire,” thus giving the videographer the rights to the video before selling them to TMZ for $2,000.
After selling the footage to TMZ on December 4, Munaf signed an a non-disclosure agreement with Leto’s team. However, “as Munaf transferred copyright ownership to Defendants [TMZ] on December 4, 2015, there was no transfer to Plaintiff [Leto] on December 6, 2015 when Munaf signed the non-disclosure agreements. Munaf no longer had ownership in the excerpt.”
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Since Munaf wasn't an employee of Leto, and because there was no written document confirming an agreement that Leto's company owned the video, the judge rejected Leto's contention that he gained rights to the video by having Munaf sign a written agreement months after the footage was shot and after Munaf had already sold the footage to TMZ.
In the original video posted to TMZ, Leto is seen responding to Swift's “Blank Space” with “I like this verse, actually,” ending with him saying, “F*ck her. I don’t give a f*ck about her.”
Leto issued a public apology after the video was released. “The truth is I think [Taylor Swift] is amazing + an incredible example of what’s possible,” he wrote on Twitter. “If I hurt her or her fans my sincerest apologies.”
