Beyoncé has received a cease-and-desist letter concerning video footage shown during her new Cowboy Carter tour.
The footage in question features Beyoncé as a giant figure towering over the Las Vegas skyline and interacting with the Sphere concert venue.
Lawyer Kathleen McCarthy, representing Sphere Entertainment Group (SEG), claims that Beyoncé’s production company Parkwood Entertainment used images of the Sphere without authorization.
“Beyoncé – many orders of magnitude larger than the Sphere venue – leans over, picks up the venue, and looms over it,” McCarthy wrote in the cease-and-desist letter, according to the New York Post. “SEG was never asked and the prominent appearance and manipulation of SEG’s Sphere venue in the video is unauthorized.”
McCarthy accused them of “impermissible use and violation” of the company’s intellectual property rights and claimed that that video has caused “significant speculation” that the tour will end with a residency at the venue.
The lawyer has demanded that Parkwood “cease and desist from using the Sphere venue in the video immediately – in addition to refraining from using this imagery on any merchandise, promotional or marketing materials, or in tour movies”.
Failure to comply with the demand may result in additional legal action from SEG.
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour began at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California and will visit multiple U.S. cities, London, and Paris before finishing in July.
Reports from last year suggested that Beyoncé was considering a residency at the Sphere, which recently opened.
