World Largest Rubber Duck Floats On To Celebrate Canada Day – Despite Legal Wrangling

To celebrate Canada Day, artist Craig Samborski and co-owner Ryan Whaley created the world’s biggest rubber ducky.

WORLD’S LARGEST RUBBER DUCK

As part of the celebration for Canada’s 150th birthday, the giant $71,000 duck will visit six cities in the province, beginning in Toronto. The oversized fowl is six stories tall, weighs roughly 30,000 pounds, and is just a few feet taller than the owner of the previous record-holder.

The duck is actually a replica of a project by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, which has been floating around since 2007. The original duck was supposed to be a fun piece of art that would draw crowds. “We are living on a planet, we are one family, and the global waters are our bathtub, so it joins people,” Hofman said.

Hofman’s studio spokeswoman Kim Embers has released a statement about the duck. “In 2014, Studio Florentijn Hofman retained Mr. Craig Samborski to assist in the production of our art installation in Los Angeles. Since that time, Mr. Samborski has been using our patterns, our design, and our intellectual property to profit off of what was supposed to be a public art installation,” she said. “The duck was never supposed to be used for profit. It was designed to be a public art installation to bring joy and hope wherever it went. By renting the duck at exorbitant rates against the wishes of its creator, Mr. Samborski not only is stealing this joy from the public, he is stealing from the legitimate artist and creator of this exhibit,” Enbers continued. “We are deeply saddened that the Canadian people have to pay for the actions of Mr. Samborski. In fact, we feel that it is the antithesis of what we assume the Canada 150 celebrations should be all about. Had a Canadian government official tried to contact us, we would have provided the real duck. It is unfortunate this due diligence wasn’t completed.”

Whaley has responded to these claims, and states that their duck is, in fact, based on the original rubber duck toy designed in the 1930s, which is in the public domain. “We’ve actually had an intellectual property lawyer look into this, and we were able to patent our duck and trademark it to have it at events,” he said. “The duck, itself, could still be used by anybody. So, someone could take a picture of the duck we’re using and make a bigger one and there would be no legal precedent at all.”