Rihanna Facing Lawsuit From Second Photog Over "S&M" Vid

posted on Jun 24, 2011

Whips and chains may not hurt her, but it looks like Rihanna's in for another legal smackdown.

The "Man Down" singer is facing a second copyright infringement lawsuit filed by a Paris-based fashion photographer who alleges Rihanna pilfered images from his work for her bondage-themed "S&M" music video.

Memo to Ri-Ri: You might want to hire an art director next time.

Per RadarOnline, shutterbug Philipp Paulus accused Rihanna of ripping off a series of fashion shots from his Paperworld spread from August 2010 without his permission, including staging and sets in the video that he says are identical.

According to the website, the 19-year-old photog specifically singled out one shot that he contends was an obvious lift: a model in a billowy gown trapped against a wall by a sheet of plastic surrounded by large X's made out of black tape.

In "S&M," Rihanna strikes a pose wearing a flowing white dress as she's stuck against a wall by a layer of plastic with similar X marks (see Paulus' version on his website).

"For legitimate reasons the use of copying Paulus' work over a million times requires an agreement that protects the copyright and the achievements and creations of our client which has never been given by our client, neither to the artist Rihanna nor to her label Universal Music," states Paulus' attorney. "According to this, the copyright laws of our client has been infringed and the worldwide million-wise exploitation of the video S&M is unlawful. . .[and] Paulus will take legal action against Rihanna."

The photographer's legal eagle added that his client decided to proceed with the lawsuit after failing to reach a settlement with the diva's camp, which has so far refused to comment about the controversy.

As for Paulus, he didn't sound too forgiving.

"Why a worldwide celebrity is not able to afford a creative director, who creates individual concepts and stagings, is incomprehensible to me," the photographer told Radar. "To create new things within the creative cosmos, you can only expect this to come from a real genius, there is no doubt about that."

He continued: "However, in this case there is no real genius who created their own work; instead they stole ideas from a creative talent. Furthermore, every other creative professional should realize how supremely embarrassing it is to copy the work of colleagues from the artistic world and then to be praised for it."

He's not the only one taking issue with the 23-year-old hitmaker over unauthorized imagery.

Renowned artist and filmmaker David LaChapelle also sued Rihanna demanding a share of royalties on the grounds that she stole the whole look and feel of the video, including the hot-pink latex she wears and various S&M accoutrements, alleging that "the composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood [and] theme" is directly derived from his works.

- E! Online

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