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Google Violates Miro's Copyright?
Anonymous Coward writes "In a homage to Joan Miro on his birthday, Google changed its logo as to spell out the word "Google" in Miro's style. Google has a history of changing its logo in order to commemorate events and holidays of particular significance. In this case, the homage was not well received by the Miro family or the Artists Rights Society which represents them, as reported by the Mercury News. According to Theodore Feder, president of the ARS, "There are underlying copyrights to the works of Miro, and they are putting it up without having the rights". The ARS demanded that Google removed the logo, and Google complied, though not without adding that it did not believe it was in violation of copyright. The ARS has raised similar complaints regarding Google's tribute to Salvador Dali in 2002. "It's a distortion of the original works and in that respect it violates the moral rights of the artist," Feder said." It seems to me that the art world has a glorious history of incorporating prior art into modern creations. It's amusing to me that ARS doesn't understand that.
This isn't about money. It's about the family of the artist wanting to assert the artist's "moral rights". They don't want the artist's work associated with Google.
You may agree or disagree with the family's desire to do this. You may agree or disagree with the fact copyright gives them the right to enforce those moral rights. But the fact is that saying this is about money is lying, and does nothing to deal with the issues that are central to this case.
Saying "I don't want my art to be associated with Google" is no more about money than saying "I don't want the code I contribute to GNU/Linux being put in a proprietary product".
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I almost asked what provider Salvador Dali or Joan Miro had, but apparently it weren't their email addresses posted...
... last I checked. He wanted to use his parody of Eminem's song for a music video but Eminem declined, but he said that Weird Al could make a song of it. Al respected Eminem's wishes even though under the rules of parody he could have done whatever he wanted. Al's a nice guy.