US appeals court throws out Jeff Koons copyright lawsuit
A US federal appeals court has dismissed a copyright lawsuit against artist Jeff Koons, reinforcing strict time limits on intellectual property claims in a ruling that contrasts sharply with recent European legal outcomes.
A three-judge panel for the Second Circuit in New York upheld a February 2025 lower court decision on Tuesday, ruling that sculptor Michael A. Hayden waited too long to file his infringement claim. The judges did not evaluate the actual merits of the copyright dispute, focusing instead on the three-year statute of limitations.
The dispute centres on a coiled snake sculpture Hayden created for Ilona Staller, an Italian politician and adult-film star also known as Cicciolina. Koons incorporated the snake into his controversial "Made in Heaven" series, which he produced in collaboration with Staller between 1989 and 1991.
Hayden argued he only discovered the works in 2019, prompting him to register his copyright and eventually file suit in December 2021. The court rejected this timeline. Judge Denny Chin wrote that a reasonable copyright holder cannot “bury their heads in the sand, ignore widespread international media coverage of allegedly infringing art, and then sue for potential infringement some 30 years later.”
The judges noted that Hayden lived in Italy for two decades while the works circulated publicly. They pointed out that Koons became globally famous, Staller was a prominent public figure in Italy, and a piece from the series was exhibited at the 1990 Venice Biennale. The court also declined to hear a related claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding the publication of the images on Koons’s website.
Diverging transatlantic liabilities
For European galleries, collectors and artists, the ruling highlights the starkly different legal risks across jurisdictions. While US courts offer a robust statute-of-limitations shield against decades-old claims, European courts have proven far less forgiving of appropriation art.
In 2021, the same year Hayden filed his US lawsuit, Koons lost a separate copyright appeal in France. A French court ordered him to pay €190,000 in damages to photographer Franck Davidovici over "Fait D'Hiver," a 1988 sculpture based on a Naf Naf advertisement. That ruling not only imposed financial penalties but also barred the sculpture from public display in France.
The divergent outcomes underscore a complex landscape for the international art market. High-value works face unpredictable legal exposure depending on where they are exhibited or sold, leaving institutions to navigate fragmented intellectual property frameworks without a unified transatlantic standard.
