LeBron Play (Instagram photo)
NBA star LeBron James and rappers Drake and Future are accused in a new lawsuit demanding $10 million in damages for stealing the “intellectual property rights” to the film – “Black Ice” – about Canada’s old and segregated hockey league for black players.
Billy Hunter, the former head of the NBA’s veteran players association and former federal prosecutor, is seeking a share of the profits from the documentary as well as $10 million in damages in a complaint filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court that claims he owns the exclusive footage. Legal rights to produce any film about the Colored Hockey League that existed from 1895 to the 1930s.
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“While the defendants are LeBron James, Drake and Maverick Carter [שותפו העסקי של לברון] well-known and internationally known in their fields of basketball and music, that does not give them the right to steal another’s intellectual property,” reads the lawsuit filed by Hunter through attorney Larry Hatcher.
In the lawsuit, Hunter accuses defendants who include NBA champion and four-time MVP James and the Canadian singer and their entertainment companies of making a deal behind his back with the authors of the acclaimed book that the documentary is based on – “Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of The Maritimes, 1895 to 1925”.
The complaint alleges that when Hunter confronted the authors after hearing about the separate “Black Ice” film deal with James and Drake, the Posteys “specifically claimed” that the “competing venture” did not infringe on his “exclusive worldwide license” or his film rights, Because the “documentary” was different and did not violate the agreement.
First Entertainment representatives said in a Zoom call that they are working with James and his Springhill company to secure the rights to produce the documentary “Black Ice” and have received partial funding from the Canadian Film Fund for the project. But Hunter “stated unequivocally that this is his personal project, and he has no interest in selling his exclusive option or any part of his rights” to anyone else, according to the suit.
Hunter, through his lawyer, then sent a breach of contract letter to the defendants on November 1, 2021, after seeing an article in the Canadian press that Drake would be the executive producer of the documentary “Black Ice”.
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