What do you do if you want to attract young people to Xianity with references to pop culture? You break copyright laws. This artcle talks about Xian stores that sell shirts and things that take popular corporate logos and change them subtly to a Xian message, like, for instance, taking an Abercrombie & Fitch logo and changing the words to "Abreadcrumb & Fish."
Jay Reeves, the author of the article asked a manufacturer of Xian gifts about this practice and the manufacturer assured him that if the owner of the copyright wrote to ask them to cut it out, the manufacturer would stop production. Isn't that nice? I always thought that one of the 10 commandments said "Thou shalt not steal," but apparently it says "Thou shalt stop stealing after the victim finds out." It's just us heathens that believe stealing is wrong.
3 comments:
My personal anti-favorite example of this is the "Calvin praying to the cross" stickers I see in the back windows of cars. Not only has Bill Watterson never licensed any part of the Calvin and Hobbes world for any kind of commercial use, but the C&H cartoon itself was pretty consistently skeptical and anti-organized-religion.
NEVERTHETWAIN
I hate to be pedantic, but in the USA there's some protection of parody in copyright law. Much though it would be fun to bust the Christians, I'm glad that the South Butt might be saved.
James D, the original article to which I linked explained that while parody is protected, these products don't fit that catagory. The Christian product manufacturers are taking someone else's trademark and co-opting it to advertise their own completely unconnected product.
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