Brian Donnelly, better known as KAWS, was awarded $900,000 in damages this week by a New York court after the artist filed a lawsuit in 2021 accusing a man in Singapore of reproducing KAWS works on hundreds of goods with a collective retail value of over $63 million.
The Court for the United States Southern District of New York ordered Dylan Joy An Leong Yi Zhi and two Singaporean companies associated with him to stop producing the infringing products featuring the well-known KAWS Companion character, which is depicted in much of his work. The $900,000 awarded to KAWS is intended to offset “the effect that [Leong’s] infringement has in the market for plaintiffs’ products, including diluting the distinctiveness of the products and disrupting the market for KAWS products,” according to the ruling.
KAWS project assistant David Arkin said in court documents that Leong’s wares cost between $59 and $3,299 and the total retail price of the 154 fake KAWS items was more than $63 million. Leong was selling stuffed dolls, vinyl figures, ashtrays, skateboards, canvases, posters, sculptures, rugs and neon lights, according to the ruling. Authentic KAWS work can sell for millions—-its auction record was set in 2019 when Sotheby’s Hong Kong sold The KAWS album (2005) for $14.8 million (including fees).
According to court documents, one of the companies’ websites said the goods for sale were “hand-reworked custom reproductions due to the low prices we are able to provide.” According to the ruling, this was sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Leong “knowingly intended to sell counterfeit KAWS products.”
The KAWS team presented evidence of 154 products created by Leong that they believe infringed the artist’s copyright, according to the ruling. KAWS said the sale of counterfeits of his work “harms his reputation with the buying public and art lovers” and may even “chill the market for his original work as buyers fear they may inadvertently acquire a counterfeit. “, according to the decision. KAWS spends more than $40,000 a year identifying counterfeits and issuing takedown notices, he said.
KAWS filed a lawsuit against Leong in 2021, but noted in court papers that his team first sent cease-and-desist letters and takedown notices the previous year. Aaron Richard Golub, an attorney for KAWS, said Artnet News the artist will then seek judgment against Jonathan Anand, another defendant in the case. Representatives for KAWS declined to comment, and Leong’s attorney did not immediately respond to The arts journal‘s requests for comments.
