Singer Dua Lipa sues Samsung for $15 million for using her image on TV boxes
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If she wasn't paid to have her image on the box, she should be compensated for it, with punitive damages for failing to acquire the rights to use the image in the first place. Seems to me that's how it's suppose to work.
ETA: What would make this funny is if they ginned up the image on some AI and thought that would get past copyright law.
ETA: What would make this funny is if they ginned up the image on some AI and thought that would get past copyright law.
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And you may be underestimating it because you're simply not the target demographic.
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She has 65 million monthly Spotify listeners, she's currently #30 in the world overall
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I continue to be disappointed in a timeline where people make <checks notes> technical decisions based on a celebrity being on the box. That said, the fact that these comments came from X probably reflects strongly on the analytical abilities of your average X denizen.
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If anyone has a formula or example of a previous case where a cost per screensaver or cost per cardboard box image was calculated, please post a link in comment. I have no doubt they rode on her coattails, but have no idea what that’s worth in 2026.
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Check out her charity and philanthropic work. She's not just a singer/songwriter/celebrity.
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I have a strong feeling people are just trolling her on Twitter, because if you say you bought a TV because of the person on the box, you're either lying or a total idiot.
To be perfectly fair, while I think her reasoning is ridiculous... she is kinda right, Samsung used her image without her approval, they're in the wrong. She needs to do something about it or other brands will try to do the same with way worse intentions.
To be perfectly fair, while I think her reasoning is ridiculous... she is kinda right, Samsung used her image without her approval, they're in the wrong. She needs to do something about it or other brands will try to do the same with way worse intentions.
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Samsung is a huge, international corporation. Who cares? /s
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J.C. Helios
Ars Scholae Palatinae
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The wire from the filing says she has exclusive rights to that particular image. I expect that Lipa’s lawyers would have fact checked that before explicitly claiming such.
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She is suing them, because Samsung ignored her cease and desists. If you get a letter saying stop using my image without paying me or I'm going to sue you, just stop using that image.
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They did it in the first place and they don't want to stop because yes, they certainly at least think it helps sales.
The pictured TV is like a 300 dollar TV. This is not targeted to the discerning technical crowd, it's targeted to the people running to Wal-Mart to replace their TV that just broke and are going to buy whatever catches their eye first.
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I wonder if Samsung thought it had permission through some broader content or promotional-use agreement. If the image came from content available through a Samsung streaming or rental service, maybe Samsung believed the license allowed stills from that content to be used to promote the service or compatible hardware.
Still, that seems like a big leap. Licensing content for streaming/rental is not necessarily the same as using a performer’s likeness on retail packaging to sell TVs. That starts to look more like advertising or implied endorsement, which I’d expect to require explicit permission. Maybe Samsung has a contractual argument (and that will come out with discovery), but on the surface it seems different from merely displaying licensed content inside the service (or on the TV itself.)
Still, that seems like a big leap. Licensing content for streaming/rental is not necessarily the same as using a performer’s likeness on retail packaging to sell TVs. That starts to look more like advertising or implied endorsement, which I’d expect to require explicit permission. Maybe Samsung has a contractual argument (and that will come out with discovery), but on the surface it seems different from merely displaying licensed content inside the service (or on the TV itself.)
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Very low (probably).
Getty (whose business this is) would have likely had to ask Lipa for permission and it doesn’t seem likely Lipa would have granted it.
If it was legal for Getty to sell the rights to the image, presumably, Lipa’s legal team would have known about that.
If Samsung purchased rights from Getty, it’s likely they would have mentioned it.
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buying things because they have a famous person on the box is not a new phenomenon. For as long as printed packaging and celebrities have existed famous people have been used to sell things.
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Making a product packaging change (even just the printing) is not a simple undertaking at a large multinational corporation. How an unlicensed image got past the legal team says a lot about the skill level of that particular dept tho
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Given the name "central district of California" one might naively expect to find this region centered somewhere near Fresno. Nope, the central district is not geographically "central" on either the North/South or East/West axes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Central_District_of_California
The shape of the federal court districts in California make a lot more sense after weighting for population. Most of the population is near the coast, which in large part explains why the Eastern District is so very large.
https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/jurisdiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Central_District_of_California
The shape of the federal court districts in California make a lot more sense after weighting for population. Most of the population is near the coast, which in large part explains why the Eastern District is so very large.
https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/jurisdiction
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Yea, but thats nothing against X or for it, people have been buying things because of a "celebrity on the box" for decades if not millennium, for certain values of celebrity and box. You did business with the same people the government did, or the king, or earl, or duke you wanted favor with. I don't know if gladiators did endorsements but I think something similar existed. TV has had TV doctors advertise medicine. Its probably been around as long as people have shouted advertisements for their wares.
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You would think companies would've learned something from CorelDraw and Hedy Lamarr https://www.wired.com/1998/11/corel-caves-to-actress-lamarr/
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Additionally, she's actually a surprisingly insightful literary critic.
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What is the DMCA copyright infringement statutory damage per copy? Let's go with that - between $750 and $30,000 per image and $150,000 if willful.
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It might not be that hard. Samsung produces lots of new products with different box images on a regular basis.
Edit: it might be easier than getting embroiled in a legal issue about the image.
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I doubt many people bought the tv because of the Dua Lipa picture, still it is a surprisingly big miss by a major corporation. How did Samsung not know the origin of a picture plastered to one of their product boxes?
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