Vampire Weekend Responds to Cover Model’s Lawsuit
"This is The First Time Any of us Have Ever Been Sued"
Jul 19, 2010 Vampire Weekend
Last week, model Kirsten Kennis, whose teenage mug graces Vampire Weekend’s sophomore album Contra, sued the band—claming they didn’t have the legal right to use the 1980s Polaroid. The damages? 2 million dollars. That’s a lot of boat shoes! After a weekend of silence the band responded, revealing the none-too-startling revelation that it really sucks to be sued.
Leadman Ezra Koenig told NME the following:
“I think I can speak for all of us and say this is the first time any of us have ever been sued, so we’re still learning how it works. There’s so many things we could say about it but given we have no experience of it we’re just keeping conversations to a journal for now, which is a little frustrating. There’s nothing we can say about it. We’re not trying to be mysterious. I imagine in the next few months there’ll be plenty to talk about. Given it’s our first time we just want to do it properly.”
Meanwhile, their record label XL (who shoulder legal responsibilities for this type of issue) released to following statement:
“As is standard practice, Vampire Weekend and XL Recordings licensed the rights to use the photo on the cover of Contra pursuant to a license agreement that contains representations and warranties authorizing this use of the photo. Now that a lawsuit has been filed, we look forward to having the matter resolved in Court. We will be filing our response after we have had an opportunity to review the allegations. Consistent with our practice, we will not be commenting further about the pending litigation at this time.”
(via Stereogum)
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July 19th 2010
7:24pm
ZING! Leave it to the record company to come up with a snappy comeback.
July 19th 2010
10:09pm
That’s not a response that means anything. They may have contracted for a license to use the photo, but it’s also entirely possible that whoever they licensed it from never had the model’s permission to use her image. I recal reading that this was a photo the band or someone found… If that’s true it’s very likely there was no consent by the model. The issues of contract (validity of a license) and a person’s right to control their own image for commercial purposes are distinct. In fact, since the label
refers to “representations and warranties,” I suspect this is exactly what happened- he party granting a license routinely warrants that they own the image or other intellectual property bein licensed, and have valid basis to grant the license. If hey didn’t that’s a breach of contract, and the label would be able to recover from he licensor in order to pay The model.