Artist James Concannon designed a stenciled leather jacket for "Queer Eye" star Antoni Porowski. Lego copied the jacket without Concannon's permission and Concannon is now suing Lego for copyright infringement.
Concannon's black leather jacket has white stencil art of a skull, a peace sign, and a Yin-yang symbol. The Lego piece has similar symbols in roughly the same location.
If Lego had only given Concannon's 6-year-old son a free Lego set as promised, the matter could have been settled out of the court. But Lego wanted to play hardball.
From Insider:
The artist says he contacted Lego upon seeing that the "Lego Queer Eye Fab 5 Loft" set had copied "the unique placement, coordination, and arrangement of the individual artistic elements" of the original jacket. Concannon said that the company made clear through its marketing that the toy jacket was based on the real one designed by him.
Concannon added that when he reached out to Lego the first time he was offered a free "Fab 5 Loft" set, which retails at $99, for his 6-year-old son. When the toy never came, he says he contacted Lego again and was told that the previous operator was mistaken and that Lego does not give away its sets for free.
