KAWS Awarded Nearly $1M For Knockoffs From Other Side Of The World
KAWS is moving to cross out the urge of some artists to replicate his iconic motifs, wherever they may be. In a landmark decision by the US Southern District Court of New York, the street artist has been awarded US$900,000 in damages from a man in Singapore and two companies associated with him for infringing his copyright.
The court has ordered Dylan Joy An Leong Yi Zhi and two Singaporean companies to stop producing imitations based on KAWS’s quintessential Companion mascot. The renowned New York artist claims Leong “knowingly” sold counterfeit KAWS goods, as implied by a description on one of the companies’ sites that stated the products on offer were “custom hand-reworked reproductions due to the low prices we are able to provide.”
Although KAWS, whose real name is Brian Donnelly, filed a lawsuit against the Singaporean man in 2021, his team had sent cease-and-desist letters and takedown notices to the defendant since the year before.
KAWS’s lawyer Aaron Richard Golub tells Artnet News that the dispute is a “very important international case,” as it shows that the team can enforce the same arguments on intellectual property violators from other parts of the world.
Singapore adheres to a common law system and acknowledges the invocation of international court decisions, though those are still subject to domestic legal sources.
In their documents, KAWS’s team presented 154 allegedly infringing wares that Leong had created, including vinyl figures, plush toys, ashtrays, skateboards, sculptures, and posters, with prices ranging from US$59 to US$3,299. The knockoffs amounted to a total retail price of US$63 million, the lawsuit asserts.
KAWS stated in his complaint that the sale of the fake goods “damages his reputation among the buying public and art aficionados,” adding that the counterfeits can even “chill the market” for his original art since buyers might be afraid of purchasing an imitation good. He said he spends over US$40,000 per year identifying copycats and sending out takedown notices.
The New York court is awarding US$900,000 to the artist to cushion “the effect that [Leong’s] counterfeiting has upon the market for plaintiffs’ goods, including the dilution of the products’ distinctiveness and disruption in the market for KAWS goods,” says the ruling.
KAWS’s team says it is now pushing its case against another Singaporean defendant named in the suit.
View this post on Instagram
[via The Art Newspaper and Artnet News, cover photo 142457091 © | Dreamstime.com]
