Art for IP’s sake

Google Miro logo

Or, rather, the opposite: Wendy Seltzer reports that a modified Google logo posted on April 20th, in the style of a Joan Miro painting and made in honor of the Spanish artist’s birthday, was removed after “his family and the Artist’s Rights Society asked Google to remove the tribute mid-day. Google honored theAmong the Bullrushes by Joan Miro request while saying that the logo did not infringe.”Obra de Joan Miro

Of course there is not even a breath of a trademark claim here, and evidently Google is just being sensitive — you don’t honor someone’s birthday (well, the anniversary of this birth — he died in 1983) by ticking off his family.

But what is it all coming to? Why do heirs of great men think their legacies are protected better by, one way or another, squelching any tribute to their works?

Ron Coleman

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