Katsuni Sues Bow Wow Over Alleged Theft of Dance Footage

LOS ANGELES—Popular adult performer Katsuni has sued rapper Bow Wow after he allegedly lifted long segments of the French beauty's dance routine from the video "Conspiracy Strip Club" by the French group Electronic Conspiracy and incorporated them in his own music video, "Drank in My Cup." According to an article on Courthouse News, Katsuni's unidentified moves take up 70 seconds of the two-minute, 10-second Bow Wow video, which also contains a brief clip (masked for the YouTube version) of a Katsuni body double giving a blowjob to Bow Wow. "The Bow Wow music video was edited so that it appears that Bow Wow is performing in the same environment in which Plaintiff's performance is taking place," the complaint claims. "The footage of Plaintiff's dance performance is a central feature of the Bow Wow music video and in fact constitutes approximately 62% of the entire music video." "At no time did plaintiff permit footage of her dance performance in the Electronic Conspiracy music video to be used for any other purpose or in conjunction with any other musician other than Electronic Conspiracy," the lawsuit states. Katsuni first leveled the allegations in April, though at that time, Bow Wow PR rep Aliya Crawford told AVN, "The video was created and posted by a fan, not by Bow Wow or anyone associated with him." However, the lawsuit charges that the video is posted on Bow Wow's official YouTube page, and that he tweeted its URL on April 20. Though the video was  pulled from Bow Wow's YouTube page shortly before AVN's article appeared, it has been reposted by others and has been viewed, in total, over 300,000 times. Katsuni is seeking at least $75,000 in actual and punitive damages from Bow Wow and his music label Universal Music Group for the alleged publicity rights, unfair business practices, false association and unjust enrichment violations. She is represented by David Pierce of Beverly Hills. Katsuni has been nominated for several AVN Awards, has appeared in nearly 300 adult videos and on the cover of Penthouse France, and has been named by Genesis magazine as one of the "Ten Most Popular Porn Stars in America."