Jeff Koons, sculptor each claim advantage after Warhol copyright decision; Reuters, June 30, 2023

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; Jeff Koons, sculptor each claim advantage after Warhol copyright decision

"Famed pop artist Jeff Koons and artist Michael Hayden both told a Manhattan federal court on Friday that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Andy Warhol supports their position in a copyright fight over a stone platform that Koons allegedly misused in his work."

Jeff Koons Is Found Guilty of Copying. Again.; The New York Times, November 8, 2018

Alex Marshall, The New York Times;

Jeff Koons Is Found Guilty of Copying. Again.


"On Thursday, a court in Paris ordered Mr. Koons, his company Jeff Koons L.L.C., the Pompidou Center and a book publisher to jointly pay Mr. Davidovici almost $170,000 for breach of copyright and damages caused. The amount is small compared to the value of Mr. Koons’s “Fait d’hiver,” which the Prada Foundation bought for over $4 million at auction in 2007.”

Jeff Koons sued for appropriating 1980s gin ad in art work sold for millions; Guardian, 12/15/15

Guardian; Jeff Koons sued for appropriating 1980s gin ad in art work sold for millions:

"Jeff Koons, a US pop artist whose works can fetch millions, is facing allegations he used a New York photographer’s commercial photo from the 1980s in a painting without permission or compensation, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

The photographer, Mitchel Gray, said in the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that Koons reproduced his photo, which depicts a man sitting beside a woman painting on a beach with an easel, “nearly unchanged and in its entirety”.

Gray is also suing New York-based auction house Phillips Auctioneers and an as-yet-unnamed former owner of the Koons print, which sold for $2.04m in London in 2008...

There is a three-year statute of limitations on copyright actions, but “the clock doesn’t start ticking until the plaintiff learns of the infringement”, his lawyer, Jordan Fletcher, of the law firm Kushnirsky Gerber, said in an interview."

All Bark, No Bite: Settlement Reached in Balloon Dog Dispute; New York Times, 2/3/11

Kate Taylor, New York Times; All Bark, No Bite: Settlement Reached in Balloon Dog Dispute:

"Clowns everywhere can breathe easier: Jeff Koons’s lawyers have backed down in an intellectual property dispute over balloon dog-shaped bookends."

In Twist, Jeff Koons Claims Rights to ‘Balloon Dogs; New York Times, 1/20/11

Kate Taylor, New York Times; In Twist, Jeff Koons Claims Rights to ‘Balloon Dogs'" :

"The artist Jeff Koons has developed a distinctive style, and made a lot of money, by appropriating pop-culture imagery and mass-produced objects, from inflatable toys to vacuum cleaners and kitschy greeting cards. Over his three-decade career that approach, while helping to make him famous, has also brought accusations of exploiting other people’s copyrighted images. He has been sued for copyright violation four times, losing three of the cases...

Andy Warhol, for example, often used other people’s photographs as sources for his paintings, prompting complaints from several photographers; the disputes were settled out of court. But today the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts vigorously protects its copyrights when it comes to commercial merchandise.

If “you decide to create a calendar with a bunch of well-known Andy Warhol images,” Mr. Landes said, “you’re going to be sued for sure.”"