Theme park Rabbit Town Bandung loses appeal, found guilty of plagiarism
Tourist attraction Rabbit Town Bandung was found guilty of plagiarism. The accusation was filed by Nancy J. Rubins, the wife of Chris Burden, the late artist who designed the Urban Lights installation. The original installation has been displayed in LACMA, Los Angeles since 2008.
The case has been going on since 2020. Back in June 2020, Burden’s estate represented by IABF Law Firm filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. The Indonesian Commercial Court at the Central Jakarta District Court agreed with the analysis, siding with the Burden estate.
However, Rabbit Town founder Henry Husada denied the accusation and filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court. On 13 December 2021, the Supreme Court found Rabbit Town guilty.
The court ordered Rabbit Town to remove the installation within 30 working days and pay the Burden estate Rp1 billion. Rabbit Town must also issue apology statements. Two statements are to be published in national daily newspapers in Indonesian language, while one statement is to be published in a national daily newspaper in English (The Jakarta Post). Rabbit Town must also post an apology statement on its official Instagram account.
Artnet reported that in his defence, Henry said that Rabbit Town’s “Love Light” and Burden’s “Urban Light” were not similar, ignoring the fact that both are symmetrical displays of hundreds of ornate lamp posts arranged in rows of descending height. He also added the fact that “Urban Light” is not well-known in Indonesia.
Henry argued that he has loved lamps and electricity since he was young, adding that the exhibits will be rotated seasonally “so that people don’t get bored.” This, however, did not help his case.
Other installations in Rabbit Town are also known as knock-offs of other artists’ works. This includes Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room, Colette Miller’s series of angel wing murals in Los Angeles, as well as several rooms from the Museum of Ice Cream, the pop-up museum sensation located in New York and Singapore.
To this date, the Burden estate is the only party that has taken legal action against Rabbit Town.