On December 21, the San Francisco gallery Park Life recieved a cease-and-desist letter from Jeff Koons' lawyers, asking for the "immediate cessation" of sale of one of the gallery's gift shop items: a cast resin bookend shaped like a balloon dog. Park Life has responded to the letter by removing the item from sale, which kind of sucks for them, and is making Koons look like a dick. Kind of. The reason why Park Life sells these bookends is because they look like the Jeff Koons sculptures, but to what extent does this dude own the balloon dog? Can you copyright something like this especially when it wasn't your idea in the first place? Sure making the dog out of aluminum was the actual art, but what happens when it's made out of something else? Does Koons own the right to make a balloon dog out of anything other than a balloon? [Capital New York]
