Is Bob Ross Incorporated still holding onto the rights of their namesake’s name and likeness?
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Executive summary
Bob Ross Inc. (BRI), the company founded with Bob Ross and run by Walt and Annette Kowalski and now by their daughter Joan, currently controls the commercial rights to Bob Ross’s name, image and likeness; courts have upheld that control and the company actively licenses and enforces those rights [1][2][3]. The result is contested in family accounts and documentaries, but the legal and marketplace reality as reported is that BRI retains and exploits those publicity and IP rights today [4][5].
1. How the corporate control came to be — the competing narratives
Bob Ross’s estate plan and the Kowalskis’ corporate claim tell different stories: Ross amended a trust in 1994 to leave his name, likeness and related rights to his son Steve and half-brother Jimmie Cox, but Ross’s business arrangements with partners Walt and Annette Kowalski and contemporaneous statements and memoranda produced evidence that the rights had effectively been placed under Bob Ross Inc. during his life [6][3]. Documentary filmmakers, Ross family members and media pieces describe family members asserting that Ross intended the rights to go to his son, while the Kowalskis and company materials present an opposing account that the business legitimately owns the Bob Ross persona [7][4][2].
2. What the courts decided — the decisive legal rulings
Federal litigation sharply favored BRI. In a 2019 summary-judgment ruling, a U.S. District Court in Virginia concluded that, based on the totality of evidence including a memorandum and Ross’s conduct, Bob intended his intellectual property and publicity rights to belong to Bob Ross Inc., not solely to his trust, effectively denying his son Steve exclusive control [3][8]. Subsequent lawsuits and filings have not overturned that legal posture; reporting and legal analyses indicate BRI “secured all of Ross’ intellectual” property and the company’s ownership has been sustained in court decisions cited across coverage [5][9].
3. Who runs the company and how it operates today
Operationally, ownership and management passed from Walt and Annette Kowalski to their daughter Joan in 2012, and BRI today markets and licenses Bob Ross’s name, image, voice and related works through controlled channels — including a program of Certified Ross Instructors and selective licensing deals with companies like Funko — and by asserting rights against unauthorized uses such as AI-generated likenesses, as described by Joan in interviews [1][2][10]. The company’s own hosting and licensing pages explicitly state that BRI owns “all intellectual property rights relating to the late artist Bob Ross, including his name, likeness, image, and voice” [2].
4. The contested moral and reputational argument
Beyond technical legal ownership, the dispute is also about legacy and whether the artist’s wishes were honored: Steve Ross and family members argue that Bob intended the rights to remain with his blood relatives and that BRI profited while excluding them; documentary coverage portrays the Kowalskis’ rise and legal maneuvers as at times aggressive and contrary to Bob’s personal wishes [4][7]. Conversely, BRI and its defenders frame their stewardship as protecting and properly commercializing the Bob Ross brand for new audiences and taking measures to guard the artist’s image in modern contexts like AI and NFTs [1][10].
5. What this means for fans, creators and the record
Practically, anyone seeking to commercially use Bob Ross’s likeness, voice or branded materials must deal with BRI’s licensing regime or face enforcement; public-facing traces of the dispute — the Netflix documentary and media retrospectives — have amplified complaints but have not changed the legal ownership status reported in the press and by legal commentary [2][4][5]. Reporting is consistent that while Bob Ross may have intended one distribution of rights, judicial findings and corporate control place the active legal ownership and licensing authority squarely with Bob Ross Inc. [3][9].