Both world-renowned rappers Drake and Future are accused in a new $10 million lawsuit for allegdly stealing the "intellectual property rights" to a film enttiled "Black Ice."
The movie is about the old, segregated Canadian hockey league for black players. Implicated with them is the basketball star, LeBron James.
Billy Hunter, former longtime head of the NBA Players Association and former federal prosecutor, is seeking a share of profits from the documentary as well as $10 million in damages in an explosive lawsuit filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court alleging he holds the exclusive legal rights to produce any film about the Colored Hockey League, which existed between 1895 and the 1930s.
Even though LeBron James, Drake, and Maverick Carter [LeBron's business partner] are internationally renowned in their respective professions of basketball and music, this does not give them the right to steal another's intellectual property, according to Larry Hutcher, Hunter's attorney.
In the lawsuit, Hunter accuses four-time NBA champion and MVP James, "Nice for What" singer and Canadian Drake, and their entertainment companies of cutting a deal behind his back with the authors of the critically acclaimed book "Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895 to 1925"
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The authors, George and Darril Fosty, are also named as defendants, citing breach of contract for allegedly violating the agreement granting Hunter the right to produce a film on the black hockey league by instead negotiating a side deal with Team LeBron and Drake.
According to the lawsuit, Hunter paid the authors $265,000 for the movie rights to the plot.
On September 10, the documentary directed by Oscar-nominated director Hubert Davis will be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"I don't think they believed the property rights would be litigated. They thought I would go away. They gambled," Hunter, 79, who also briefly played professional football in the 1960s, told The Post.
In an apparent pun, Hunter's attorney, Hutcher, stated that it is "very ironic" that James and Drake, who "cherish their brands," would be "so irresponsible" as to violate someone else's movie rights. James began his professional career with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Hunter, who is black and a longstanding civil rights activist, said he was interested by the narrative of the black-only professional hockey league, which reminded him of the segregated negro professional baseball league in the United States and the civil rights movement to break down the color barrier. Canada's national sport is hockey.
"I just said, 'Wow. That has to be a movie,'" he said.
The lawsuit also names as defendants James' entertainment companies, The Springhill Company and Uninterrupted Canada, as well as Dreamcrew Entertainment, the entertainment company of Drake (born Aubrey Graham) and Future (legal name Adel Nur), the Fostys' publishing firm, Stryker Indigo, and film production company First Take Entertainment.
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