The lady on the cover of the Vampire Weekend album Contra is suing Vampire Weekend, XL Recordings and the dude who claims to have taken the photo for $2 million plus any revenue that was generated by her image for using her image without her consent.

Ann Kirsten Kennis was a model back in the 80′s and 90′s when this photo was taken. Photographer Tod Brody claims he shot this at a casting call and it belongs to him, but Kennis says this was probably taken by her mother and neither Brody or Vampire Weekend have any rights to use it.

While I’m all for making sure you have the rights to images before you distribute them, I’m totally bummed about this. Contra sold 377,000 units in the US which means that the band will probably go broke if this lady wins the lawsuit and takes their profits and then I won’t get any more Vampire Weekend awesomeness!! Or, more likely, the record label will pay it out and make Vampire Weekend give up profits from their next albums essentially sucking the life out of the artists as they become slaves to the label (see: Bootsy Collins and Warner Brothers).

Stacey: “Probably taken by her mother”.  Bitch please.  This woman needs to go away.

(source: Vanity Fair)

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