[slg]

I find it a little ironic that the author is complaining (or at least unapprovingly noting) that most of the image's use violates the original license considering the image so closely resembles the official one. You shouldn't create a remix of an image and then bemoan the remix culture when people use your image.

[klez]

The logo he created is not a remix of the original one (if you look in the post they are different), but it's just similar. The problem, as I see it, is that the use of his logo is subject to a license that, in the cases he presents, is not respected. This has less to do with the remix culture and more with the fact that some journalists blindly take images from google image search without verifying licenses and original authors.

[laumars]

I'd wager that those journalists just pulled the file from Wikipedia (as so many journalists seem to these days). So the real question is why did Wikipedia add the wrong logo?

> The logo he created is not a remix of the original one (if you look in the post they are different), but it's just similar.

It's still derivative work though.

[SomeCallMeTim]

>It's still derivative work though.

Are you a lawyer? Seems like quite a definitive statement when, from what I can see, it's not at all clear that it's a derivative work in the copyright sense. It may simply be a derivative work of the standard RSS logo, color-shifted to be similar to the Google RSS logo.

As far as TRADEMARK law is concerned, it's absolutely related to the Google logo. But we're talking COPYRIGHT, and just making something look like something else doesn't violate a copyright. But IANAL either.

[laumars]

I take your point. Fair enough :)

[slg]

I agree with your second point, but the first is debatable. Is there some legal definition of remix that this doesn't fit? Either way, it would be near impossible to argue that the author's logo was not based off the Google logo (assuming the Google one was created first).

[indiekid]

Technically a "remix" would be defined as taking an original image, and making changes to that specific image.

In this case, I saw their favicon (16x16) and created a derivative work that was high resolution. I'm not complaining per se by any means...I really could care less. My statements on the license were to show that these derivations and uses might happen without permission, which they did in this case.

[freehunter]

Ironic maybe, but I don't think it's inappropriate. He created a version of the logo that fit his needs because a version that fit his needs didn't exist. It's not much different than the custom icons people make for desktop re-skinning (GIS for "desktop skin custom icons"). The point he's making is that his custom icon is now being reused by many different organizations rather than the official logo, and not only that but his custom icon is being attributed to Google (contrary to his license). AFAIK, re-imagining a Google logo is not against Google's license.