{"id":8519,"date":"2025-11-13T03:36:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drakes-what-did-i-miss-music-video-spurs-lawsuit-from-photographer\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T03:36:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:36:30","slug":"drakes-what-did-i-miss-music-video-spurs-lawsuit-from-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drakes-what-did-i-miss-music-video-spurs-lawsuit-from-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake’s ‘What Did I Miss’ Music Video Spurs Lawsuit From Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA new lawsuit claims Drake\u2019s \u201dWhat Did I Miss?\u201d music video ripped off the work of an Italian photographer \u2014 and, in a strange twist, that the rapper was intentionally trying to connect his feud with Kendrick Lamar to a controversial Balenciaga campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe copyright infringement complaint, filed against Drake (Aubrey Graham) on Wednesday (Nov. 12) in federal court, alleges a key sequence in the \u201cWhat Did I Miss?\u201d video lifts from a photograph in Gabriele Galimberti\u2019s 2020 book The Ameriguns. <\/em>Both Galimberti\u2019s photo and the scene in question show men standing outside houses, surrounded by firearms laid out in parallel around swimming pools.<\/p>\n

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\n\tGalimberti is a photographer with National Geographic<\/em>, though he is perhaps best known for shooting a notorious 2022 Balenciaga campaign that portrayed children with sexually explicit objects. The campaign drew a huge backlash, with consumers accusing the fashion house and Galimberti of glorifying pedophilia.<\/p>\n

\n\tWednesday\u2019s lawsuit draws a direct line between the Balenciaga controversy and \u201cWhat Did I Miss?,\u201d in which Drake addressed the aftermath of his rap battle with Lamar. That feud ended with Lamar calling Drake a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d on the chart-topping diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d leading Drake to sue Universal Music Group (UMG) for defamation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiff was ultimately publicly vindicated in a defamation lawsuit abroad related to the false accusations arising from the Balenciaga advertisement,\u201d writes Galimberti\u2019s attorney. \u201cGiven Kendrick Lamar\u2019s lyrics\u2026calling defendant Graham a pedophile and defendant Graham\u2019s now dismissed defamation lawsuit, on information and belief, defendant Graham sought to imply that he, like plaintiff, would be publicly exonerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tDrake\u2019s defamation lawsuit was dismissed last month, with a federal judge ruling that lyrics in rap battles are hyperbole and not meant to imply facts. Drake is now appealing to revive the case against UMG, which owns both Lamar\u2019s label Interscope Records and his label, Republic Records.<\/p>\n

\n\tRepublic and UMG are both defendants in Galimberti\u2019s lawsuit as well, along with Drake and his company OVO Sounds. Galimberti is seeking financial damages for what he describes as \u201cboth an egregious violation of federal law and an affront to plaintiff, his livelihood, his legacy and to photographers everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiff is a serious professional, addressing serious themes,\u201d reads the complaint. \u201cHis work hangs in galleries, museums, graces serious print literature, and his career depends upon the respect and admiration of dealers, collectors and critics of contemporary and documentary art. By the forced and unauthorized association of his work with the infringing video, the integrity of his work and his reputation as a photographer has been damaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Drake and UMG did not immediately return requests for comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat Did I Miss?\u201d debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July, and hit No. 1 on both Hot R&B\/Hip-Hop Songs and Rhythmic Airplay, extending multiple Billboard <\/em>chart records for the rapper.<\/p>\n


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A new lawsuit claims Drake\u2019s \u201dWhat Did I Miss?\u201d music video ripped off the work of an Italian photographer \u2014 and, in a strange twist, that the rapper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[401,303,593,2770,7014,1556],"class_list":["post-8519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-drakes","tag-lawsuit","tag-music","tag-photographer","tag-spurs","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}