>> From the 5/24 San Francisco Chronicle:
>>
>> STARBUCKED
>>
>> San Francisco cartoonist Kieron
>> Dwyer thought a T-shirt poking fun at Starbucks'
>> mermaid logo would be funny -- but he's not
>> laughing anymore.
>>
>> Like the Starbucks' logo, Dwyer's shirt creation
>> features a smiling mermaid -- but this one has a
>> naval ring and nippled breasts. She is also holding a
>> cup of coffee in one hand, a cell phone in the other.
>>
>> Dwyer, a former Marvel Comics cartoonist, also
>> replaced the Starbucks stars with dollar signs, and
>> slapped ``Consumer Whore'' where ``Starbucks''
>> would usually go.
>>
>> Starbucks didn't think it was funny . . . at all.
>>
>> Without so much as a phone call or a ``cease and
>> desist'' letter, Starbucks sent in the powerhouse law
>> firm of Jones Day Reavis & Pogue to get a
>> temporary restraining order prohibiting Dwyer from
>> selling or displaying his mock logo.
>>
>> The cartoonist has also been ordered to appear in
>> U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday to
>> defend his mocking of corporate greed.
>>
>> ``We will not tolerate this commercial use of an
>> offensive adulteration of our logo,'' said Starbucks'
>> PR director, Alan Gulick.
>>
>> ``It's really ridiculous,'' says Dwyer's attorney, Andy
>> Gold. ``This is like carpet-bombing an ant farm.''
>>
>> As for the charge that the Starbucks mermaid's new
>> nipples, navel ring and cell phone are offensive?
>>
>> Attorney Gold says Starbucks should wake up and
>> smell the coffee.
>>
>> ``Hey, she's a real '90s gal,'' he says.
>>
>> Still, '90s or not, if history is any indication, the
>> Seattle-based coffee barons -- who now boast of
>> 2,800 stores worldwide -- will probably succeed in
>> dunking Dwyer and his little Web-site shirt business.
>>
>> -----------------
>>
>> Nice to see that a huge corporation can prohibit someone from even
>> *displaying* a parody of their logo.
>>
>> --
>> KarlHiller [] Systems Librarian, INTP
>> conserving bandwidth by not having superfluous material in my .sig
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