Artist Jeff Koons Fights For His Balloon Dogs
American artist Jeff Koons, the man behind those giant balloon sculptures of dogs, is trying to stop a San Francisco gallery from selling balloon dog bookends. Rich people are so greedy! But the gallery is fighting back!
Koons claims that because he made the sculpture, he should be the only one able to profit off the image of a balloon dog, something that has been being made for centuries. Well, maybe not centuries, but surely as long as clowns have been scaring children—and that's a long time.
Last month, Koons' lawyers sent cease and desist letters to Park Life gallery in San Francisco and the Canadian company that manufactures the bookends. Both have since told him to go screw himself, and rightfully so. But we'll see if a judge agrees that the balloon dog shape is in the public domain or if it belongs to Koons, in which case I might try to copyright the image of a flower since I drew a rose once in art class.
