Rapper 50 Cent has found himself in a heap of legal debt following the successful lawsuit from Sleek Audio that accused the emcee of stealing his headphones design from the brand. An arbitrator passed a final ruling this week that ordered 50 (real name: Curtis Jackson) to pay the brand nearly $11.7 million for stealing the design, along with nearly $4.5 million to cover Sleek's legal fees. The total comes out to a cool $16.2 million.
Jackson probably would have come out of the lawsuit better if he had just looked at a pair of Sleek's headphones and stole the design in his mind. Of course, it wasn't that simple in this case. Sleek charged the rapper with "misappropriating trade secrets, breaching his fiduciary duty owed to Sleek, participating in a civil conspiracy, breaching his confidentiality agreement with Sleek and being unjustly enriched."
Essentially, 50 Cent signed on with Sleek to produce his name-brand headphones. And then he decided that he didn't need their help. So he produced his own headgear, which bore an uncanny likeness to the designs Sleek had come up with.
And it gets even more sketchy. Not only did Jackson steal the design for his headphones, he apparently stole information on Sleek customers as well. According to the lawsuit from the company, the rapper collected 3,639 e-mail addresses. An e-mail from Jackson's business manager didn't help 50's case, reading "[Sleek] is onto us, LOL. They e-mailed and called...about the data."
Free legal advice: When asked about allegedly stolen personal information, never reply with "LOL."
