(EXCLUSIVE) Tupac Filmmaker Blasts Estate Over Footage Taken Months Before His Death
Tupac Filmmaker Blasts Estate
theJasmineBRAND.com exclusively reports Tupac’s estate is being blasted by a filmmaker who worked with the rapper months before his death, saying their lawsuit demanding a cut of his work is nonsense and he doesn’t owe them.
Here’s the latest: Recently, filmmaker Gobi M. Rahimi fired back at Tupac’s trust denying any wrongdoing. He explains the photos and video footage in his possession were not owned by Tupac’s production company and thus the estate isn’t owed any cut.
Rahimi says the claims are barred due to the late Afeni Shakur having forfeited or abandoned any right to the footage, pointing out he even has a valid copyright for the work.
He then counter-sued the estate demanding a court order stating he is the true owner of the footage, along with the trust’s case against him to be dismissed completely.
Here’s the backstory: Earlier this year, Tupac Shakur’s trust sued documentary filmmaker, Gobi M. Rahimi, over footage of the legendary rapper taken months before his death.
Tom Whalley, the trustee presiding over Tupac’s mother Afeni Shakur’s estate, sued Rahimi accusing him of attempting to exploit video and photographs taken in the months prior to his death. The filmmaker and Tupac worked together late in his life.
The trust claimed Rahimi was not paying them its share of the proceeds from the work.
Per a deal reached in 1996, Tupac owned 60 percent in a production company and Tracy Robinson owned 40 percent, but she gave one-half of her 40 percent to Rahimi. The footage in question was shot for use of Tupac’s company.
The suit accuses the filmmaker of trying to cut them out of the profits and wrongfully exploiting the assets without paying a dime to the trust in violation of Tupac’s right of publicity
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