Ice Cube Sues Robinhood For Using His Photo In Daily Newsletter
Rapper Ice Cube has filed a lawsuit against Robinhood for allegedly using his photo for their advertising without his permission.
Bloomberg Law reports that the 51-year-old, O’Shea Jackson Sr., was surprised to see his own image when reading a March 8 blog post on Robinhood Snacks, a daily newsletter that covers finance. The post entitled “Why are tech stocks falling?” featured an image of the entertainer from the 2007 film Are We Done Yet? in which he co-starred.
The image is also captioned, “Correct yourself, before you wreck yourself,” a re-worked reference to Ice Cube’s 1992 song “Check Yo Self.”
Ice Cube claims that Robinhood and subsidiary Robinhood Financial LLC’s use of his image without his permission imply endorsement and promotion of “Robinhood’s terrible products and services,” the suit states.
“Defendants deliberately and shamelessly misappropriated Ice Cube’s image and likeness to promote Robinhood’s horrible products and services—and the last things in the world to which Ice Cube would ever attach his image and likeness,” the lawsuit reads. “This blatant theft of Ice Cube’s image and likeness to endorse Robinhood’s dangerous products and services has resulted in substantial damage to Ice Cube.”
According to TMZ, Robinhood denies any misconduct and tells the entertainment news outlet that the image was legally obtained and used.
“No, we didn’t use his image without permission,” a Robinhood representative said. “The image was licensed and used for non-commercial, editorial purposes in connection with a blog article.”
