Just when y’all thought it was lit, the plot thickens! Okay so just hours after Beyoncé broke the Internet with her new “Formation” song accompanied by the visuals, it was alleged that her video included some stolen footage.
Uh-oh!
Apparently, documentarians Chris Black and Abteen Bagheri noticed a few shots from a documentary they shot called “That B.E.A.T.,” a nine-minute short film that focuses on the New Orleans-bred genre of bounce music and the culture that surrounds it. It was released just about three years ago and according to them, the footage in the “Formation” video was unreleased and unauthorized for use by Bey.
So the two took to Twitter to voice their frustrations; in doing so, they called out the video’s director, Melina Matsoukas, who also director other fan-favorites like “Pretty Hurts.”
“Why Melina gotta use clips from our doc?!? Was the budget not big enough to spend a week in New Orleans and actually build with the people,” Chris tweeted.
A few tweets in between, Abteen followed up by tweeting, “If you call yourself a director, have some respect for other people with the same title. Talk to me about how and why you need my footage.”
Since then Melina tweeted out a thank you to them for helping to make the Formation video whole.
Chris confirmed that Bey’s team did attempt to license the footage last month, however, it was never solidified. Abteen was one of the people who wanted nothing to do with the involvement of the legal footage transfer.
As always, there’s two sides to every story and according to Bey’s party, a representative for her said that, “That B.E.A.T.” was obtained legally: “The documentary footage was used with permission and licensed from the owner of the footage. They were given proper compensation. The footage was provided to us by the filmmaker’s production company. The filmmaker is listed in the credits for additional photography direction. We are thankful that they granted us permission.”
AND, the @BeyFacts Twitter chimed in further supporting the sources statement that the footage was legal.
“100% legal. Don’t sign your rights over to something and then claim it was stolen from you if it’s no longer yours,” the page tweeted. They also claim that Bey’s team asked for permission out of respect and at the ends of the day, permission from them was not “NEEDED” and they paid Sundance channel for the footage seeing as how they are the legal owners of the footage. They also tweeted that the contract was solidified and ownership rights were actually signed over to Sundance’s director.
So with all that being said, we want to know how y’all feel about the allegations and rumors!
Let’s chat!
Source: Hot New Hip Hop, http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/beyonc-s-formation-video-allegedly-steals-documentary-footage-news.20029.html
TSR intern: Chantel P.! @_popchanny on IG!
