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Brian Donnelly, higher generally known as KAWS, was awarded $900,000 in damages this week by a court docket in New York after the artist filed a lawsuit in 2021 accusing a person in Singapore of reproducing KAWS’s works on tons of of products with a collective retail worth of greater than $63m.
The US Southern District Court docket of New York ordered Dylan Pleasure An Leong Yi Zhi and two Singaporean firms related to him to cease producing the counterfeit items that includes KAWS’s well-known Companion character, which is depicted in a lot of his work. The $900,000 awarded to KAWS is supposed to offset “the impact that [Leong’s] counterfeiting has upon the marketplace for plaintiffs’ items, together with the dilution of the merchandise’ distinctiveness and disruption available in the market for KAWS items”, in response to the ruling.
David Arkin, KAWS’s venture assistant, stated in court docket paperwork that Leong’s items had been priced at between $59 and $3,299, and that the overall retail value of all 154 faux KAWS objects reached greater than $63m. Leong was promoting plush dolls, vinyl collectible figurines, ashtrays, skateboards, canvases, posters, sculptures, rugs and neon lights, in response to the ruling. Genuine work by KAWS can promote for hundreds of thousands —- his public sale document was set in 2019 when Sotheby’s Hong Kong offered The KAWS Album (2005) for $14.8 million (together with charges).
In response to court docket paperwork, one of many firms’ web sites said the products on the market had been ”customized hand-reworked reproductions because of the low costs we’re capable of present”. In response to the ruling, that was sufficient proof to show Leong “knowingly meant to promote counterfeit KAWS items”.
KAWS’s group submitted proof of 154 merchandise created by Leong they claimed infringed on the artist’s copyright, in response to the ruling. KAWS stated the sale of knockoffs of his work “damages his status among the many shopping for public and artwork aficionados,” and might even “chill the marketplace for his unique work as a result of purchasers worry inadvertently buying a counterfeit”, in response to the ruling. KAWS spends greater than $40,000 yearly figuring out counterfeits and issuing takedown notices, he stated.
KAWS filed the lawsuit in opposition to Leong in 2021, however famous in court docket paperwork that his group first despatched over cease-and-desist letters and takedown notices the earlier 12 months. Aaron Richard Golub, a lawyer for KAWS, advised Artnet Information the artist will subsequent search a judgement in opposition to Jonathan Anand, one other defendant within the case. Representatives for KAWS declined to remark, and Leong’s lawyer didn’t instantly reply to The Artwork Newspaper’s requests for remark.
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