Artist sues Starbucks for stealing her work
Jun-30-2015

An internationally known Brooklyn muralist claims Starbucks knocked off her art in promoting its "Mini Frappuccinos."

Maya Hayuk is suing the coffee Goliath in Manhattan federal court for $750,000 in copyright penalties plus unspecified cash damages.

"More than anything, she was just saddened" to see her designs on promotional posters, advertisements and even the plastic Frappuccino cups themselves, her lawyer, Aaron Silverstein, told The Post Wednesday.

Hayuk, of Greenpoint, says in her suit that Starbucks' ad agency first reached out to her in October. "We love your work," the ad agency, 72andSunny in California, emailed her.

Hayuk, who's done work for Billabong, Microsoft, Sony, General Motors and Reebok, among others, after eight days of discussions turned the project down - saying she was too busy.
It wasn't until she was painting a mural in Morocco recently that she learned that Starbucks had forged ahead anyway.

Their "strikingly similar" campaign used the same abstract, radiating beams of black, white, yellow, magenta and azure that Hayuk had used in a series of five paintings, she says.

"Starbucks brazenly created artwork that is substantially similar to one or more of Hayuk's copyrighted works," the lawsuit claims.

Starbucks had used an in-house artist, Seattle-based Jordan Kay, for the artwork, which was a considerable departure from Kay's other work online, which is mostly figurative and tends toward pastel-hued watercolors.

"When things like this happen, it cheapens the value of the art - it's really true," Hayuk's lawyer said. "And her only source of income is her art."

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