Google's occasional sprucing of their site did not liven up everyone's internet searching experience. The most recent logo change, which the search giant goliath occasionally alters graphically to pay tribute to a significant cultural event or person, featured the a revamping in the style of twentieth century Spanish painter, Joan Miro, commemorating his birth.
The Artists Rights Society, which represents a number of artists' families and their related estates, asked Google to remove their tribute logo. The grounds: the graphic scripting of the logo was seen as a "distortion" to Miro's trademark style, and is significantly close enough to be a copyright infringement.
Various news postings and blogs have debated the efficacy of the "copyright infringement" and limits of fair use in the wake of this latest incident with Google. As it relates to any creative work, fair use has fallen under a flurry of discussion over the past few months and has spawned a number of conferences.
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Screenshot courtesy of Mercury News
