Rod Wave is facing a lawsuit claiming he stole the photo featured on the cover of his 2024 album Last Lap from a Florida photographer who snapped it at a concert.
In a complaint filed Thursday (Dec. 11), Allan Salas says he was never paid for the use of his image — a shot of Rod holding a mic stand at a Tampa, Fla., concert — even after the rapper’s reps were expressly warned that Salas owned it.
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Not only did the star use the image on the album, Salas claims — he also used it to promote his 28-show arena tour and on merch like t-shirts.
“Even though the defendants had already commercially released the album, which contained unauthorized uses of the photograph, the defendants doubled down and tripled down on their unauthorized use,” his attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, obtained by Billboard.
Wave’s Last Lap debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in October 2024 and ultimately spent 56 weeks on the album chart, marking the latest commercial success for a rapper who has topped the chart three times in the last five years.
In his lawsuit, Salas says he took the photo of Wave at an August 2024 concert in Tampa — a homecoming show for the St. Petersburg, Fla., native. The lawsuit claims Salas was “authorized to be at the Arena to take photos of Green during this concert,” but that he wasn’t compensated and retained the rights to the pictures he snapped.
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Prior to the release of the album, the case claims that Rod’s team was “explicitly advised” that Salas owned the photo, but that they never “attempted to contact Mr. Salas” nor “attempt to obtain his permission or a license.”
“Green’s use of the photograph was deliberate, willful, and in utter disregard of the plaintiff’s rights,” attorneys for Salas wrote.
A rep for Wave did not immediately return a request for comment.
The case isn’t the first lawsuit to be filed over the Last Lap tour. Earlier this year, the tour’s promoter sued Wave over allegations that he was obligated to return $27 million in tour advances after he failed to finish the original 35-date schedule. Wave has since counter-sued, claiming it was the promoter’s own failures that forced him to cancel the shows.
As many celebrities have learned, simply being featured in a photo does not give you the right to use it. Barring a written agreement, the copyrights to such images are owned by the photographer, and using them without their consent is infringement. Artists including Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa and Justin Bieber have all faced similar lawsuits in the last few years, though more often over social media posts than album covers.
In 2023, the rapper Cam’ron was sued over allegations that he used a 2003 image of himself — in a fuzzy pink coat and hat while holding a matching flip phone — on t-shirts, jewelry and a slew of other merchandise sold by his Dipset Couture, all without any kind of license from the original photographer. He was later ordered to pay more than $50,000 to the photographer.
