Beyonce is getting sued.
The Hollywood Reporter reports Kentucky filmmaker/TV station creative director Matthew Fulks filed papers in a New York civil suit against Sony, Columbia and Beyoncé’s management company, Parkwood Entertainment, for allegedly copying his short film Palinoia for the trailer of her visual album Lemonade.
Fulks’ court documents claim his film was finished July 2015, and that a series of emails linked his film’s concept to Bryan Younce, Senior Vice President of Video and Content Production at Columbia Records, the same label Bey is signed to. Younce is also said to have credits on Beyonce’s visuals from her self-titled 2013 album.
Eriq Gardner, writer for The Hollywood Reporter, writes:
Specifically, the complaint cites nine visual similarities comprising 39 seconds of a 60-second trailer. The images allegedly taken come without any linear narrative raison d’etre. The visual similarities are “graffiti and persons with heads down,” “red persons with eyes obscured,” “parking garage,” “stairwell,” “black and white eyes,” “title card screens,” “the grass scene,” “feet on the street,” “side-lit ominous figures,” all adding up to a supposed total concept and feel substantially similar to the short film.
For instance, here’s the “parking garage” similarity:
Fulks is asking for all profits attributed to exploitation of his work including from sales of the “Lemonade” album.
Yikes! Peep the trailers for Lemonade and Palinoia below. Do you think Fulks has a case?
