Drake and LeBron James are being sued for $10 million for Black Ice, their forthcoming documentary about a segregated hockey league. According to TMZ, Billy Hunter, former head of the NBA players union, is looking for a share of the film’s profits and filed a lawsuit at the Manhattan State Supreme Court on Monday (Sept. 5).
Hunter claims Drake, James and his business partner Maverick Carter allegedly stole “intellectual property rights” to create their project. The lawsuit details that the rapper and athlete used the muscle of their production companies to maneuver around Hunter.
In doing so, the duo signed a deal with George and Darrill Fosty, authors of the doc’s source material, allowing them to create their project. Hunter also claims he has the exclusive rights to “produce any movie” regarding the beginning of the Colored Hockey League in 1895.
The ex-head of the NBA player’s union expressed he paid the authors $265,000 for exclusive rights to the movie. The Fosty brothers allegedly claimed their deal with the entertainers didn’t violate their agreement with Hunter because they were creating a documentary, not a movie. Hunter called this “absurd” and “in bad faith.”
