Monday 25 June 2012

Dublin Bus parody tee-shirt provokes legal response

The tee-shirt on the left emanantes from a website in the US which specialises in adorning its apparel with amusing takes on various corporate logos.  Some of them are quite clever - I like this one poking a bit of  fun at Twitter - and some are so-so.  See  Teevault here.

Here's another example (right)  -  this time from a website in the UK called Zazzle.  It uses elements of You Tube's logo to say something else.    It is hard to imagine Twitter or You Tube getting to hot and bothered about either.  

Not so Dublin Bus.  Artist Niall de Buitlear recently used the semi-state's logo (a semi-state we all subsidise through our taxes) on a parody tee shirt he hoped to sell on a website of his own called Tshock.

Niall simply inverted and slightly tweaked the logo to give it the appearance of a skull / Lucha Libre Mask.  For his trouble he was contacted by lawyers from Dublin Bus, who demanded he remove the images from his website and stop selling the tee shirts. 

We won't invert the Dublin Bus logo here, for fear of bringing the wrath of the company's legal eagles down on us, but you can stand on your head while viewing the screen or simply print it and turn it upside down to see its Totenkopf similarities:


Things have come to a sad pass when a young artist cannot supplement his income by flogging a few tee-shirts, designed on the same lines as those created by silk-screeners elsewhere,  without being threatened by one of our semi-state monoliths.  


Another example of the  "freedom" the boys and girls of the 1916 putsch died for, I suppose.


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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, well. I'll never be able to look at that logo in the same way again!

Although my favourite discovery was that the 29A bus route, if taken as a hexadecimal number actually equals 666!

Now that one explained a few things. :)

Iain

The Gombeen Man said...

"29A bus route, if taken as a hexadecimal number actually equals 666".

Dublin Bus is looking more sinister by the minute, Iain. No wonder its bigwigs are so defensive. They have something terrible to hide.

Anonymous said...

Just to correct your use of the word 'putsch'

putsch
- A sudden attempt by a group to overthrow a government.

Ireland did not have a government at the time. It was ruled by Britain.

Ann Onymous

The Gombeen Man said...

My understanding is that Ireland was part of Britain, and elected its own MPs to Westminster. I suppose one might make the argument that the seat of parliament wasn't in Dublin, but London - therefore the "government" wasn't in Ireland and would still be left in place in the event of Irish "independence".

And now, what about tee shirts please?

Anonymous said...

I think you will find that Ireland was never part of Britain. Britain is the island to the east of Ireland. The Irish Sea separates the two.

The Irish people did not want to send MPs to Westminster, where rules were made to the detriment of Ireland and the benefit of the ruling elite.

Ann Onymous

And oh yes t-shirts. Great for summer.

Ann Onymous

The Gombeen Man said...

OK, if you want to be pedantic - as you are - Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Also the term British Isles is an ancient one.

The 1916 Putch overthrew one government in Ireland and replaced it with an Irish catholic gombeen elite, informed by an stifling definition of insular Irish which lead to a era of stagnation, backwardness, child abuse and emigration.

You'd know about the last one, living as you do in the UK. I think you need to take off those green-tinted glasses that have informed you comments - under various personas - on the blog over the years

Mind you, it's your right to have made the choice to live in Britain whilst bemoaning the 800 years of oppression in Ireland.

Let me, however, concentrate on what this country's ruling class have perpetrated on the Irish people since taking power in the 20s, with the aid of the cultural nationalist rhetoric you so adore...

Anonymous said...

I think you are being too harsh. All in all Ireland is a grand little country entirely.

Ann Onymous

Dakota said...

Priceless...QUANGO Heaven, GM. Never did trust them.