An infamous photo of Nas and 2Pac from 1993 has landed the Queensbridge rapper in federal court.
According to Radar, noted photographer Al Pereira has named Nas in a lawsuit, claiming he shared Pereira’s photo of him, Pac and Redman outside of Club Amazon in 1993 without permission or licensing the work. Per court documents, Nas re-uploaded the photo to his personal Instagram account in 2020, three years after Pereira registered copyright for it.
Pereira would file his suit in February, and in his eyes, the worth of the photo diminished after Nas posted it on Instagram. He’s suing for damages plus an injunction against Nas for using his work.
The lawsuit against Nas isn’t Pereira’s first regarding his work. In 2017, he sued Kylie and Kendall Jenner for unlawful use of photographs he took of Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. The Jenners attempted to use the photos as part of a clothing line.
In an interview with Culture Crush, Vikki Tobak, creator of Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop, recalled the moment she discovered the photo of a young Nas, Pac and Redman as well as The Notorious B.I.G.
“We uncovered an Al Pereira photo that’s a very infamous photo of Biggie, Redman, and Tupac together,” she said. “And also on that contact sheet, when we were going through it, there was a strip of images of Tupac and Nas. It was already funny, when Al tells the story of some “big guy” trying to get into his photo of Tupac and Redman, and that it turned out to be Biggie Smalls himself before he was signed.
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“So on top of that, it turns out there had never been a photo of Tupac and Nas together. Al never realized it was on the contact sheet because at the time he took it, Nas wasn’t famous at all. It was in 1993, and Nas’s first album didn’t come out until 1994. He was just some kid, recording and making his way, and ruining the shot.
“And Al, being the kind of photographer that he is, was like “I’m going to get the photos of the people that I can sell to magazines, and that is Tupac and Biggie.” So that photo, when we uncovered it, it meant a lot to Nas, because it also had one of his closest friends, who ended up passing away a few years after the photo was taken, in the photo with him.”
Imagine someone suing you over a picture of you. GTFO
CALL THE COPS WHEN YOU TUPAC!
Fuck that guy. Nas is in the picture. He can do whatever he wants with it. Photographers need to accept the reality that when they digatize a hard copy, they have released it the world. Did Nas digitize the photo ? And if he did, did he sign any agreement upon being given a hard copy ? I bet this asshole cant produce Nas signa
Jay z at least consistently represents the east where as nas sold out to work with west coat shit in the 90s.
Pac is originally from Harlem NY, you do know that right?
2pac sold out when he joined death row
And your mom sold her p**** to help keep the lights on at your house as a kid. STFU. You don’t know a damn thing.
And Bad Boy Records is ran by a butt plug wearing non talented homosexual extortionist who takes joy in watching the less fortunate suffer. I think his name is Sean Combs.
So like, I’m not sure what being gay or wearing butt plugs has to do with the negative traits you mentioned about Combs, but I am curious what you mean when you say he enjoys watching the less fortunate suffer.
Fuck yo momma
Hov is an Angelino now like plenty of other New Yorkers #westcoastbestcoast
This Muhfucka Does Realize This Photo Been Out For Over A Decade Before Nas Even Reposted It On Instagram… This Muhfucka Just Looking For An Easy And Unjust Pay Day….??♂️
No one had even seen it before 2018 when Vikki found it in a photo set she’d acquired from Pereira to potentially use for her book. So it’s the only photo that exists on Tupac and Nas and before her book it’d never been printed so you’re absolutely right that he’s just chasing a payday. He copyrighted it in 2018 because even though it’d been printed in Contact High, only people who had bought the book had seen it, must likely, so he could still pitch it to magazines who would want to buy it because people who still hadn’t seen the photo could probably be convinced to purchase their magazine to see it, but when Nas posted it on his publicly available social media account, instantly anyone could see the photo for free any time they wanted so now Pereira’s greedy ass can’t charge an exorbitant amount of money to a magazine so that magazine could then exploit hip-hop fans into spending money to see it.
Get that stupid photographer taken out of the game. He is a scumbag for money. How stupid can he be to sue Nas over a picture that he is in like Nas has every right to that picture. Pathetic ass photographer is just trying to find a way to make that paycheck smh.
“Nas has every right to that picture” _ you sound like a fukin ex-wife (bitch made) he ain’t entitled to shit he don’t own
Can’t be mad at someone uneducated ? stupid bonehead it’s a picture of him he is no object he is a human being he has the right to repost the picture he is seen in. Kick rocks loser
And you sound the lyk the type think they a father when they lookin after someone else kids coz they baby momz be running game on them on some good rat ish.
Actually, people own the rights to their own image, so unless when the photo was taken Al Pereira had Nas sign the rights to his image in this picture away, which he didn’t because he didn’t know Nas was anybody until 2018, then Nas absolutely has non-commercial rights to this photo, at the very least. Al Pereira would also have non-commercial rights to the photo as the photographer, but whether he actually had commercial rights would depend on other factors.
So he’s suing him for uploading a picture of himself? lol
I know this has nothing to do with this but I just want to say it anyways, Fuck Diddy. Can’t stand that him. If it weren’t for him, both Pac and Big would still be alive.
So, there are so many really intriguing theories about the murders of Tupac and Biggie and I’m curious, when you say that if it weren’t for Diddy, Pac and Biggie would still be alive, are you referring to the theory that Diddy had both of them killed, or do you think he was in some other way responsible for their deaths? I genuinely want to know because I know a lot of different theories but don’t really know which ones people actually believe and which ones are just something one crazy person came up with but no one actually believes in.
The original beef was between Suge and Puffy due to Puffs bodyguard shooting and killing Suge’s homie in Atlanta. This was before Pac was signed to deathrow. Puffy hired South Side Crips in LA for protection when in Cali and they were beefing with Death Row (mostly Compton Bloods) Orlando Anderson who more than likely killed Pac was a Southside Crip. Now it was retaliation for getting jumped in the Casino but the connection is there. Puff apparently offered bounties for Death Row chains. I think Puffy is more responsible for Biggies death however as he should have been smart enough to not be in Cali that soon after Pacs death and was even warned not to go. J Prince mentions he was someone who told Puff to stay out of LA but he didn’t listen and the rest is history.
Both Al and Vikki are culture vultures. This chick said that Nas wasn’t famous at all and her evidence was that illmatic came out in 94. If they were a part of the culture, she would know of Nas in 1993 given the huge buzz coming off live from the BBQ debut verse in 91 and the halftime single dropping in 92. By 93, his shit was highly anticipated among the hip hop circle. She’s right he wasn’t “famous,” but of course if you were outside that hip hop circle and just taking pics to line your pockets, he would seem like ‘some kid making his way, ruining the picture’…now that that kid is almost a billionaire, now all of a sudden it’s important? Lol things are not ‘discovered’ when white folks figure it out u know… Classic vulture display.
As for this pic, they’ll get nothing for it. Nas didn’t use it to profit in any way like the jenners tried to do, so they’ll get the share of money he made from it. $0…
Well said.
I think you may have misunderstood what Vikki was saying. She was saying that while working on Contact High, she found this photo in a strip of photos that Al Pereira took in 1993 when he was trying to get pictures of Tupac and back then he had copyrighted some of them and sold them to magazines but he hadn’t copyrighted this particular picture because he didn’t know who Nas was. When she says Nas wasn’t famous, she’s saying he hadn’t reached malfeasance l mainstream popularity yet so Pereira didn’t know who he was. The reason Nas was able to post it on his Instagram was because when Vikki found it, she contacted Nas so he could see it because it was the only picture ever publicly taken of the two of them. Presumably, since he took the photos, she also told Pereira about this unique find that she’d uncovered in this contact sheet and his greedy ass saw dollar signs and registered a copyright on the image.
She’s just telling the story about how the photo was found she why it hadn’t been found before then, and you can tell by her statement about how much the picture meant to Nas that she wouldn’t support this lawsuit and also isn’t involved in it.
I think you may have misunderstood what Vikki was saying. She was saying that while working on Contact High, she found this photo in a strip of photos that Al Pereira took in 1993 when he was trying to get pictures of Tupac and back then he had copyrighted some of them and sold them to magazines but he hadn’t copyrighted this particular picture because he didn’t know who Nas was. When she says Nas wasn’t famous, she’s saying he hadn’t reached malfeasance l mainstream popularity yet so Pereira didn’t know who he was. The reason Nas was able to post it on his Instagram was because when Vikki found it, she contacted Nas so he could see it because it was the only picture ever publicly taken of the two of them. Presumably, since he took the photos, she also told Pereira about this unique find that she’d uncovered in this contact sheet and his greedy ass saw dollar signs and registered a copyright on the image.
She’s just telling the story about how the photo was found she why it hadn’t been found before then, and you can tell by her statement about how much the picture meant to Nas that she wouldn’t support this lawsuit and also isn’t involved in it. In fact, her quote is from an article from 2018 right after Contact High came out.
She lost her argument the moment she said Biggie was Famous with Nas’s Woods Famous before biggie
Tell the photographer to go suck a D! Just trying to make money off of other folks because he is sleazy slime ball.
Puffy, I think you have no right to tell anyone to suck anything especially since you’re the expert in that department.
Redman ? the photographer needs sued for not even getting him on the shot
Who cares about Reggie he’s a fuckin nerd.. fuck him and his lame ass whut¿ thee album from 92-93 i think idgaf it was bullshit funky crap
Maaaaan if they don’t get the FUCK outta here with this BS…..LMAO
Imagine the two hip hop GOATs standing next to each other in a picture and needing the permission of some weirdo to repost it.
So this is slightly complicated because photography is considered art so a photographer automatically assumes copyright of any photograph they produce, but also as a human being, you automatically own the copyright to your own image. This is one of the reasons photographers have people they photograph for art projects or modeling shoots sign waivers relinquishing the rights to their image in the specific image or images in the set. Since these photos were taken outside a club, unless the photographer can provide evidence that Nas relinquished his rights to his image for these images (which seems doubtful), then I would probably rule that the people depicted in the image retain full rights to use the image in non- commercial ways (like Nas did) as would the photographer, but the photographer would only have commercial rights if the people in the image didn’t care if they sold their artwork.
It’s a dumb argument that Nas sharing the photo devalues it because a magazine or other publication that would want to use it and would pay for it would still have to do that in order to put it in their publication. Other people can only look at it, which they could also have done prior to Nas posting it on Getty Images, just with a watermark.
Copyright/IP attorney response here…
“As a human being, you automatically own the copyright to your own image:
— False. Likeness has nothing to do with copyright. One can be compensated for use of their own likeness if it is used for promotion (ads, endorsements ect). If consent was not granted for that, it amounts to the tort of misappropriation of likeness and, in some cases, right of publicity which is similar.
“Since these photos were taken outside a club… :
—Location is irrelevant to misappropriation of likeness or right to publicity.
“people depicted in the image retain full rights to use the image in non- commercial ways”
—Non-commercial use is not a defense to copyright infringement although it can affect the amount of damages.
“the photographer would only have commercial rights if the people in the image didn’t care if they sold their artwork.”
—Sales is not promotional use so misappropriation does not apply. In some instances right to publicity can apply.
“It’s a dumb argument that Nas sharing the photo devalues it because a magazine or other publication that would want to use it and would pay for it would still have to do that in order to put it in their publication.”
—Exclusivity or limited use of imagery often greatly increases usage fees. Anyone in the image licensing industry knows this.
Drawz passed damn near 20 years after the pic was taken…
The world we living in…. People will sue for anything just to get some bucks.
Sure, but this is completely valid. The photo is property. It doesn’t belong to Nas. The value of the work being licensed to use in such a large setting belongs to the photographer. Just as Nas owns the value that can be derived from his artwork. Nas stole someone else’s property and the value of it.
It depends. Nas and celebrities are not just people, they are brands/businesses. If the record label (Columbia Records) owned Nas likeness at the time the picture was taken, then any rights the photographer has becomes invalid/revoked. In fact, it opens him up to be countersued for infringement by the label. He may own the photo, but not Nas likeness if that was apart of Nas’s contract with Columbia Records (which is usually the case).
If Columbia Records owned any part of Nas likeness at the time the photo was taken, then the photographer will be fighting an uphill battle. It would essentially negate any “rights” he had to the photo and could open him up to a countersuit by the label for infringement.