Gigi Hadid wins copyright lawsuit over an Instagram picture

Supermodel Gigi Hadid, who was slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit for sharing paparazzi snap without the consent a few months ago has won the copyright lawsuit.

The case was submitted in the court earlier this year in January by Xclusive as Hadid shared a photo last year in October on Instagram without the photographer’s permission, according to court documents obtained by People.

Super model Gigi Hadid defends her decision to publish paparazzi photo

As per the documents obtained by People, US District Judge Pamela Chen said that Xclusive-Lee Inc., an independent photo agency company that originally owned the photo of the supermodel could not sue for direct copyright infringement as it failed to demonstrate that “the defendant has actually copied the plaintiff’s work, and the copying is illegal because a substantial similarity exists between the defendant’s work and the protectable elements of the plaintiff’s work.”

John Quinn, the attorney representing Gigi Hadid in the case, in a statement to People said:
“We are pleased that the Court granted our motion to dismiss this meritless case. The Court’s decision recognized this case for what it was an effort to extract a settlement from Ms. Hadid with little regard for the basic requirements of copyright law”.

The obtained documents show that the photo has approximately 1.6 million people comment or likes on the photo within the first four days after the model posted it. Thereafter the company was seeking damages for copyright infringement, as well as any profits derived from the image.

Following the issue, Gigi Hadid had removed the photo from her social media handle. However, the documents also mentioned that Xclusive’s photo is not the only one that the model has posted unlicensed images.

“As of the date of this filing, Hadid’s Instagram account includes at least fifty examples of uncredited
photographs of Hadid in public, at press events, or on the runway,” the documents read.

Hadid also had a similar incident back in 2017 as well, which she resolved with photographer Peter Cepeda outside of court.