T.I. and his wife Tameka ‘Tiny’ Harris have been awarded a whopping $71 million (£53 million) in their legal battle against a toy manufacturer.
The Life Your Life rapper and Xscape singer took bosses of MGA Entertainment to court, claiming they violated the intellectual property rights of their pop group, the OMG Girlz, with some of the figures in the L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. doll line.
On Monday, after a three-week trial in Santa Ana, California, the jury awarded the couple $17.9 million (£13.4 million) in real damages and $53.6 million (£40 million) in punitive damages.
Reacting to the verdict, T.I., real name Clifford Harris, told Rolling Stone, “I think justice was served. I think it’s a testament to the relentlessness and resilience of my wife, daughter and nieces. We’re just happy we were able to come out on top and fight for creatives and our intellectual property that large corporations seem to think is just public domain and free for all to come and grab and use.”
Tiny added, “I mean, wow. They did more than I thought they would. I would have been happy with whatever. They blessed us more than beyond. We wanted to thank the jurors so bad, but we didn’t get the opportunity.”
According to the outlet, the jurors unanimously ruled that more than a dozen of the dolls infringed on the trade dress and misappropriated the name, image, and likeness of the OMG Girlz.
OMG Girlz consists of Tiny’s daughter Zonnique ‘Star’ Pullins as well as Bahja ‘Beauty’ Rodriguez and Breaunna ‘BabyDoll’ Womack. The group, who were originally active between 2009 and 2015, reunited last year.
