Drake, 21 Savage settle lawsuit over fake Vogue cover

Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Rap stars Drake and 21 Savage have settled a lawsuit brought by Vogue over their use of a fake magazine cover to promote their album Her Loss.

The two rap stars released promotional materials for the 2022 album that included a mockup of a Vogue cover, a fake Saturday Night Live appearance, a fake NPR Tiny Desk performance and a fake interview on the Howard Stern show.

The other outlets apparently took the promotional use of their brands in stride, but Vogue did not. After repeated attempts to get the rappers to stop using the imagery, Vogue's parent company, Condé Nast, filed a $4 million dollar trademark infringement lawsuit.

"As a creative company, we of course understand our brands may from time to time be referenced in other creative works," Condé Nast general counsel Will Bowes said in a statement to staff this week obtained by Semafor.

"In this instance, however, it was clear to us that Drake and 21 Savage leveraged Vogue's reputation for their own commercial purposes and, in the process, confused audiences who trust Vogue as the authoritative voice on fashion and culture."

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed but the memo indicated that the payment would help "bolster our outgoing creative output, including Vogue editorial."

The lawsuit was filed Nov. 7 in Manhattan federal court, weeks after Her Loss was released. The fake promotion included an Instagram post from Drake's account with a photo of Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, thanking her for her "support" of the project.

"Vogue magazine and its Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour have had no involvement in Her Loss or its promotion and have not endorsed it in any way," the publisher's legal counsel said in the lawsuit. "Nor did Condé Nast authorize, much less support, the creation and widespread dissemination of a counterfeit issue of Vogue, or a counterfeit version of perhaps one of the most carefully curated covers in all of the publication business."

Lawyers further characterized the campaign as a "flagrant infringement" of Vogue's trademark rights, intended to mislead the public about Vogue's endorsement of the project. The fake magazines were distributed around the country.

"The counterfeit magazine itself reveals that it is a complete, professionally reprinted reproduction of the October issue of Vogue, with unauthorized adaptations made in service of promoting defendants' album," the lawsuit contended. "The counterfeit cover ...provides no indication that it is anything other than the cover of an authentic Vogue issue."

Neither Drake, 21 Savage or Wintour have commented on the settlement.