Google Prevented From Using Australian Aboriginal Flag Because It's Covered By Copyright
from the who-copyrights-a-flag? dept
A whole bunch of folks have been sending in the news of Google needing to edit out the Aboriginal flag that was originally a part of an Australia Day Google logo. Google had apparently run a contest for a logo and an 11-year-old girl had won, after designing the logo, using various animals native to Australia, with the Aboriginal flag behind one of the "O"s. But when the logo went up on the site, it was missing the flag:
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Filed Under: aboriginal, australia, copyright, flags
Companies: google
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I wonder what the tribe's elders have to say about copyright...
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Enjoy.
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I certainly would not have been aware of it.
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next up: the maple leaf is now copyrighted by Canadian Mounties. A mounty had this to say, "We have this flag, eh? and we should protect it from them ne'er-do-well pirates, eh. Eh."
"Don't Tread on Me" (c)1754 Christopher Gadsden
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US Flag
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Re: US Flag
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Contrast
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Sound like...
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Re: Sound like...
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another case of ...
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another case of ...
'Cause if you don't let anyone use your flag, you don't get represented.
And I wholeheartedly agree with the sarcastic "SOMEONE'S NOT GETTING PAID" sentiment. In fact, that was part of the slogan on the $10M dollar bill in Mike Judge's Idiocracy: "HAULIN' ASS/GETTIN' PAID"
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Well then..
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; P
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The owner is though, trying to protect his interests from mega-millionaires who think they should have anything they want for free.
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No flag - no problem...
Well, no harm (to us) done! I guess, the rest of humankind can happily live without that knowledge... Keep your flags to yourselves!
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Missed opportunity
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Free culture is all well and good for those who've profited economically from their own culture for years. But to demand that the cultural property of indigenous peoples, minorities, and developing countries be free for use by western, FOR PROFIT companies like Google is arrogant at best (and that's being generous). It may seem like an information revolution to you, but to them it's just the same old song and dance (westerners taking their property and reaping all the economic benefits).
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Riiiight, and now without that flag they'll probably just go out of business. Uh huh, you bet.
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So who's demanding that (other than your straw man, that is)?
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A pertinent question would be : Has Google paid for other search page graphics ? Was the offer comparable (remember the flag would have been at most 1/2 the logo so a pro-rata offer would be fair)
1. Draw a yellow circle
2. Colour the remainder's top half black, bottom half red 3. ??
4. PROFIT!
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But this is just me interpreting the articles.
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Then you seem to have some serious comprehension problems. Sorry, but that's a personal problem that I can't help you with.
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Except that we'd use the same terms if a Westerner tried the same thing. Go find your racist, imperialist boogiemen somewhere else.
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Where do you come up with this flag being the cultural property of indigenous peoples, etc? The fee was being charged by one person. Whether it was an indigenous person or not is irrelevent. And the flag is less than 40 years old. The whole culture wasn't in danger of exploitation by simply showing this recently created flag. Maybe if you could see around your hyperbolic rhetoric and bleeding heart for one minute you would realize how full of crap you are. Having said that, thank you for your contribution to the discussion, as off base as it was.
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I'm not suggesting that Google is a menace or some neo-colonial power, though they certainly could've been more tactful it seems. I am expressing a viewpoint that may have been taken by the artist, who as an aboriginal, is acutely aware of the history of exploitation of his people. He may have seen Google's expectation of using his work for free or on the cheap as an extension of that history.
Of course, it's an assumption, but so is the idea that he's just a greedy artist trying to get money. We don't really know the whole truth from the articles, I'm just offering an alternate view.
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Good thing Google didn't try to take anything away from them, huh?
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The only issue I see is Google's presumption that they should receive creative content for free (as they initially offered), which is awful presumptuous for a corporation. It makes sense why they would try, but that still doesn't make it right.
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To me that seems just as rediculous.
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Refer to monkytypist's comment above for a clearer explanation of the context and meaning of the flag. As you can probably glean from both the article and the comment, it is not simply about money. You can disagree with Thomas' decision all you want, but this is actually an example of what is good about copyright law, rather than a reason to scoff at it.
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Free culture is all well and good for those who've profited economically from their own culture for years. But to demand that the cultural property of indigenous peoples, minorities, and developing countries be free for use by western, FOR PROFIT companies like Google is arrogant at best (and that's being generous). It may seem like an information revolution to you, but to them it's just the same old song and dance (westerners taking their property and reaping all the economic benefits).
It seems to me that you totally misunderstand the purpose of a flag.
Of course the commenter who described the aboriginals as "a bunch of greedy bitches" is off mark too - because they wern't asking for money.
What has actually happened is that just one "greedy bitch" has denied the aboriginal people and their culture some much needed publicity and spoiled the day of an 11 year old.
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I think the prevailing sentiment is is that they can keep their flag to themselves if they want to, but why would they want to?
It may seem like an information revolution to you, but to them it's just the same old song and dance (westerners taking their property and reaping all the economic benefits).
Nobody was trying to "take" anybody's "property". This ended up just fine. The two parties didn't agree on a price and so there was no deal. Google goes about its business, and the silly artist gets to look silly in front of the whole world.
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And do you know what the 'whole world' is thinking? Are you some arbiter of taste and silliness?
He can do with it as he has done with it ever since he designed it. He can make his choices about who can and who cannot use it.
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This is just silly :(
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What about this article?
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Re: What about this article?
Google's use would be considered to be a promotional use by a commercial entity, and treated the same as if they used an image in an advertisement.
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The good old "do not advertise me without paying me first". Except that promoting would have gone to the aboriginals as a large group of people but the payment would have been to a single person, who thinks that he represents the whole group...
A very interesting self-contradictory concept of some token (a flag in this case) representing a group of people with all the rights to that token belonging to a single person. (Sounds a little like, I do not know, monarchy?)
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Also, I don't think we all know the extent to which this flag is considered part of the aboriginal cultural heritage (it was only made in 1978, after all). I certainly don't, and it's perfectly possible than not a lot of value is attached to it by them, thus rendering this artist's decision to be a bit less tyrannical.
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The Aboriginal flag sometimes substitutes the Union Flag in proposed new Australian flag designs. Such flags are presented in science fiction as futuristic Australian flags, as in the film Event Horizon, where it was worn by Sam Neill.[10] Many Aboriginal people object to this use, including Harold Thomas, who said “Our flag is not a secondary thing. It stands on its own, not to be placed as an adjunct to any other thing. It shouldn't be treated that way.”
So, as we see it has been used before without it's creator's agreement. Not a word about a lawsuit against any movie studios. So, I believe, they do appreciate the flag being made visible for some reason?
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I'm shocked
I'm almost certain all primary school children for YEARS have been taught about it. I'm 24 and I'm pretty sure I learned about it during primary school.
Meanwhile, copyrighting a flag is a bit sus.
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So clearly, this artist is not wholly blocking the use of the flag, he's just blocking Google's. And seeing as Google is a commercial entity, I don't see why that's such a bad thing. Isn't this one of the few good things about copyright?
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Ah, but you are Australian, correct?
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Flag
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We should have
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Err, that's not the way copyright works. Your comment, however, exemplifies the way some people think copyright gives the holder control of all uses. It doesn't.
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Seems Rational To Me
Google: Hi, can we use your flag in our commercial logo for free?
Creator: Sorry, if it's not being used in a non-commercial or not-for-profit fashion there is a fee attached to use of the image.
Google: Oh, well we don't see the value in paying for using it.
Creator: Ok, then don't. Thanks for calling.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Seems a lot of inappropriate adjectives are being thrown around about this individual. In the end I think R. Hammond is (nearly) spot on.
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Re: Seems Rational To Me
Google: Hi, can we use your flag in our commercial logo for free?
Creator: (covers mouthpiece on phone) Fucking hell it's Google, they're LOADED!! I'll milk these bastards for as much as I can!! (uncovers mouthpiece) Hello! I want a million pounds please.
Google: Stick it up your arse m8 *click*
Creator: He... HELLO? Shit, maybe I should of just gone for a couple of hundred grand. Wait, come back......
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look at it this way...
Would you feel any different if it was Microsoft (or any other evil company) that made the request and was denied?
If a Chinese company was making a drawing that represented America and it included the confederate flag, would you feel any better if it was denied to do so, assuming the flag was copyrighted?
Anyone can make a flag, you can make a flag for your family if you want and copyright it. Would you give anyone free permission to use it? Wouldn't you feel that it's your right to deny anyone from using it, regardless of your reasons?
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Re: look at it this way...
I can understand why people commented harshly about the artist, as Mike's original post accuses this man of keeping the flag all for himself. But the article clearly states that he allows its use for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, and the Australians who have commented have corroborated this. Google doesn't fall under that umbrella. Sounds like a basic Creative Commons license to me.
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Surely a commerical entity cannot be a flag - it would seem to contradict the purpose of flags making it something else.
I would think the more correct term is 'The [insert name of owning corporation] logo'.
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Aboriginal Flag
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Re: Aboriginal Flag
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this could have been some good advertising for the natives
and its exactly as i have been saying if we had used your flag people might go WHO owns that and maybe YOU might have simply asked google to lpace a link to a native website for informations.
NOW thats reasonable and im sure most ocuntries if you say "name and country" or "name and affiliation"
links ot pages come up with most likely in top ten the main page. INSTEAD now you get negative advertising and people aren't as likely to think your very nice people.
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The Aboriginal Flag belongs to Aboriginal people; Harold Thomas holds the copyright primarily so he can insure that the culture and pride of the people it represents (an oppressed, marginalised group within Australia) can be respected with its use. When whitefellas appropriate the flag without asking, it pisses Aboriginal people off no end. It's their cultural symbol, their own identity, their pride.
Finally, Australian law (just like the law of many, many countries) restricts the usage of the *national* flag for commercial purposes as well. If google had used the national flag in a similar way, it most probably would have been in breach of the Flags Act. But that law is breached so often it's not funny, so the government simply doesn't police breaches. In the case of the Aboriginal Flag, there is an individual - the creator of the flag - who has the ability and determination to prevent the flag's misuse.
If a flag is an important symbol, it should be used properly and not misused. That misuse can include not acnkowledging the cultural contributions of Australia's indigenous population - something that, alongside with dispossesion, the separation of children from their parents, spreading disease, and many many other crimes - white Australians have been guilty of for a long time.
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No, it doesn't. Tell the truth: it belongs to Harold Thomas.
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It is seen by many aboriginal people as a white celebration of the stealing of the black people's land, and the near genocide of the aboriginal people.
To associate the aboriginal flag with this celebration would be offensive to a lot of people - like a nativity scene with santa claus sleeping in the manger. (ok, bad analogy, but you get the idea)
I'm sure the little girl wouldn't have been aware of this, and was quite rightly trying to include different aspects of Australian culture in her drawing.
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Its really no surprise at all, that so many people (even commenters) could be confused about needing to protect and defend their intellectual property in this day and age of moral panics and the copyright wars.
(But it was the copyright owner, not the 11yo girl who stopped the showing. The piece is lovely and well designed, it could still be a hand drawn composite, and I'm not saying it is or isn't, but the figures do look clip-art-ish enough that it strikes me as an example of a kind of artwork that touches the issues and launches interesting debates and discussions akin to the Obama Hope poster - but, in this case they were able to go ahead with a like image sans the disputed part.)
The flag has become our symbol, and it represents all the indigenous nations and tribes of the islands of Australia. It is ubiquitous in Australia now, but it certainly has not always been the case (props @monkeytypist).
IMHO it does seem an opportunity was lost, but there is always a story behind the story, (@Don: and in that regard I'd guess you're right. Its could be a case of Google stepping into a sort of feud, methinks). Maybe if copyright holder read more of Mike's articles on economics they can work out for themselves that the exposure due to Google's use could have been a useful non-scarce good to add value to the scarce goods (whatever they might be, e.g. endorsements/ marketing/ advertising deals, speaking engagements, educational flag kits for schools, who knows?) at their disposal. Maybe they could make up the money they 'lost' from this copyright deal in other ways by saying yes to Google?, there's always next year!
But seriously, thats totally the decision of the copyright owner, and it represents struggle. It became the symbol of indiginous rights and was made the "official" Aboriginal flag by the government, so there has been struggle as well in the story of the flag. Recently in Tasmania, after long struggle trying to get the flag accepted in the Parliament, they finally displayed the flag in Parliament. The way it was done was the way it was always done in White Australia, regarding 'the blacks' - to them, not with them.
peace
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Google Me
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Should have
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google rep "Hi, are you the copyright holder of the Aboriginal flag?"
flag owner - "Ey yeah mate, dats roight."
rep - we at google would like to use your flag"
owner"aww yeah, you gotta dolla? gotta some smokes?"
rep - "actually we want it for free, just for a weekend."
owner - "No deal cunt, you liek dem gubbament blokes gon try steal our land agin! you racist muvfucka! you white ghost!"
rep "...."
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