Future’s latest album art sparks copyright lawsuit
The latest album by Atlanta rapper Future is being promoted with photographs he doesn’t have permission to use, an Atlanta photographer claims in a new copyright infringement lawsuit.
Photographer Garey Gomez sued Future’s company, Wilburn Holding Company Inc., and Sony Music Entertainment in the federal trial court in Atlanta on Friday.
Representatives for the rapper and the companies did not immediately respond Tuesday to questions about the case.
Gomez alleges two photographs he took in 2021 of the Dungeon Family home in Atlanta are being used to market Future’s album “Mixtape Pluto,” released in September 2024. Gomez claims he copyrighted the photographs, one of which features on the album cover, in 2021 and has never given permission for them to be used in that way.
Future, whose birth name is Nayvadius Wilburn, is part of the Dungeon Family, a collective of rappers, producers, singers and songwriters formed in the early ’90s by his cousin, Rico Wade, and others. They turned the basement of Wade’s mother’s home in Lakewood Heights into a studio dubbed the Dungeon.
In his lawsuit, Gomez said he understands that an independent contractor working for Future’s company, which does business as Freebandz, “received permission from Sony and/or was cleared to use the photographs.” He did not identify the contractor.
“Gomez did not give permission to Wilburn [Holding], Sony or the independent contractor to use the photographs at issue in this case,” the complaint says.
Gomez’s lawsuit comes after he filed an almost identical complaint in the federal trial court in Los Angeles against Wilburn Holding and an associated California-based company called Titol Retail LLC. That case, filed in October, is continuing against Titol Retail after Gomez dismissed his claims there against Georgia-based Wilburn Holding in December.
The California case focuses on the same two photographs of the Dungeon Family home.
Gomez claims in part that Titol Retail owns and operates the Freebandz website, through which it sells clothing featuring his photographs.
The photographer says he reached out to Future’s companies twice in 2025, but they failed to resolve the dispute.
Titol Retail said in a recent court filing that it denies the allegations and any wrongdoing. It is not involved in the Georgia case.
Gomez is seeking company profits associated with the use of his photographs, among other things. His lawyers in the Georgia case did not immediately respond Tuesday to questions about it.
Court records show Gomez has filed almost a dozen federal copyright infringement lawsuits in the last few years in Georgia and several other states.
He won more than $21,000 in a 2024 default judgment in a case against an Atlanta real estate agent group that he accused of using one of his photographs without permission. Last year, he settled a different case against an Atlanta homebuilder that denied it was liable for using his photographs.
About the Author
Journalist Rosie Manins is a legal affairs reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
