Rapper Bow Wow, formerly Lil Bow Wow, has been ordered to pay almost $80,000 to a French porn star for using footage of her without her consent. According to TMZ, footage of Celine Tran, aka Katsuni, pole dancing was used in Bow Wow’s video for the 2011 song “Drank in My Cup.”
The catch is, the footage was originally filmed for a video by a French band, Electronic Conspiracy. Bow Wow seems to have taken it without permission, and now has to pay the price.
What’s odd is that Mr. Wow didn’t even address the lawsuit when it was filed last summer, so a federal judge just went ahead and ordered the “Puppy Love” star to fork over $79,346.07, and remove the footage ASAP.
Of course, Bow Wow didn’t actually make the video. He’s a rapper, not a filmmaker. I’m sure he didn’t have any idea that the footage had been used in another band’s video, because generally musicians don’t make their own videos. That is usually done by whatever production company the artist’s record company, in this case Universal Music and/or it’s subsidiary Cash Money, hired to make the video.
The fact that Bow Wow has been sued, and not his record company or the video producers, is a bit weird. And I’m in no way implying that a record company would hang an artist out to dry, because that never happens. Oh wait, it happens all the time.
Bow Wow has yet to make a comment.
