Pop artist Jeff Koons has convinced a Manhattan federal judge that a copyright lawsuit filed against him should be thrown out. Koons had allegedly violated the copyright of a set designer whose work the artist allegedly depicted in paintings and other artworks.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Reif determined Wednesday that Michael Hayden, the set designer, had effectively waited too long to file his lawsuit since the alleged infringement happened decades prior, court documents show.

In the 1980s, Hayden worked as a set designer and occasionally designed sets and props for films and live performances featuring Ilona Staller, an Italian adult film star-turned-politician best known by the name Cicciolina.

Hayden, knowing Cicciolina liked snakes, designed a large sculptural work of a giant serpent constricting a rock pedestal to be used as a platform on which she could perform.

An installation view of Jeff Koons’s Made in Heaven (1989) at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany. Photo by Wolfgang Kuhn/United Archives via Getty Images

Koons traveled to Italy throughout 1989 to photograph sexually explicit images with Cicciolina, who was much more famous than him at the time, for his “Made in Heaven” series that was photographed at a studio where Cicciolina’s sets were located. The series has been credited as the body of work that launched Koons to art world stardom.

Hayden specifically alleged that his copyright was violated in: Made in Heaven (1989), a Whitney Museum-commissioned lithograph; Jeff and Ilona (Made in Heaven) (1990), a work that premiered at the 1990 Venice Biennale with an exact 3D replica of Hayden’s work; and Jeff in the Position of Adam (1990), an oil on canvas painting.

Hayden, who filed the lawsuit in 2021, ended his work with Cicciolina shortly after the sculptural work was made. He asserted he only heard of the alleged infringement in 2019 after a former business partner sent him an article in an Italian newspaper discussing a lawsuit Cicciolina filed against Sotheby’s for displaying Koons’s Made in Heaven.

He then filed a registration for a copyright that was granted in early 2020 and soon after contacted Koons with his intent to file a lawsuit against him.

An interesting aspect of the case is that, in 2023, the court asked both parties to submit briefings about how the case might be impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the case of the Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith. That case originated from Warhol’s use of a 1981 photograph of musician Prince taken by Lynn Goldsmith. Warhol created a series of silkscreen portraits based on Goldsmith’s photograph, one of which was later licensed by the foundation to Vanity Fair and then to Condé Nast after Prince’s death. Goldsmith sued, arguing that Warhol’s work infringed on her copyright.

Visitors look at Made in Heaven (1989) and Jeff on Top (1991) by artist Jeff Koons at Tate Modern in London. File Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images

The key legal issue in both Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith and Hayden v. Koons stemmed from the fair use doctrine, a legal principle that allows the limited use of copyrighted material without permission for certain purposes.

The Supreme Court ruled against the Warhol Foundation, determining that Warhol’s modifications to Goldsmith’s photograph were not transformative enough to qualify as fair use, a precedent-setting decision from the high court that set a higher bar for what qualifies as transformative.

But Reif did not make his determination based on Koons’s arguments of fair use. Instead, he agreed with Koons’s argument the case should be dismissed purely on timing grounds because Hayden, given his background and ties to Italy, should have known about Koons’s widely popular artworks sooner. The law gives just three years for a complaint to be filed.

Though Warhol made his infringing artworks decades prior, that case centered not on his initial infringement but a new licensing of one of Warhol’s images in 2016 by the Andy Warhol Foundation after Prince’s death, counting as a fresh act of alleged infringement. And so Goldsmith’s filing properly fell within the statue of limitations.

Still, the reference to Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith is among the most significant instances where the Supreme Court’s decision impacted another case. The court’s request for Warhol-related briefings suggests that if the case had proceeded, the Supreme Court decision would have undermined Koons’s ability to rely on a fair use defense.