If you were the Stones, and someone proposed to put that big yellow McDonald’s tongue onto Rolling Stones licensed merchandise, what would you say?

Here’s some images on a NIN ripoff discovered in a UK Micky D’s:

http://i19.tinypic.com/6tzbk38.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v36/Spookymuffin/Misc/wholething.jpg

They are not “side by side” those two images are the “front and back” of the flyer!

I was going to scan and send it in when I got it in the post a few days ago.

Cool that it’s up :D

As far as both being corporations, you are incorrect. Can I invest in the Stones on the NY Stock Exchange? No. They are privately owned. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been around as long as your parents of grandparants. (Are you saying Time is no longer On Their Side?) Whether you like their music in the last 20 years or not is beside the point. They are musicians with a right to make a living from their art. Their intellectual property does not deserve to be infringed any more than your favorite no-name indie band does (who would probably jump like Jack Flash to get endorsement cash from McD’s.)

Even if they were a corporation, this would not necessarily mean they are bowing to their Satanic Majesty’s Request. There are good corporations (admittedly in the minority) and there are huge bloated food-poisoning-factory-farming-rainforest-destroying behemoths like McD’s whom I cannot believe you would defend or compare next a group that is universally recognized as one of the greatest Rock and Roll bands ever (even if you only consider their works from 20 years ago and before.) Just because they are from another time doesn’t mean It’s All Over Now. I know It’s Only Rock & Roll, But I Like It…

The shots of the Nine Inch Nails artwork shamelessly stolen (provided here by WINGO) prove irrefutably that McD’s has Sticky Fingers in regards to using this kind of intellectual property for their own gain. Are you similarly trashing Trent Reznor as a corporate whore and endorsing theft of his images just because he’s famous? Why should McD’s always get what they want?

The band The Residents had less than 30 seconds of their music used by a Swiss watch-making company for a TV ad without their permission and they were able to successfully sue for a six digit settlement, which they then poured into all kinds of projects they had never had the money for before. -All because of diligent fans reporting the abuse via the internet within 24hours of the ad running. All of the faceless entities that would rip off individual artists instead of generating something new with their billion dollar ad budgets deserve to be Shattered in the same vein. (It would give me Satisfaction.)

http://www.undergroundartproject.com/blogpics/banana-1967.jpg

But jeez, is that lazy design work! Couldn’t they have just tweaked it a little? Ostensibly the reason the logo works for McDonald’s is that you eat McDonald’s food with your mouth. Was there no possible way to make a marginally original logo involving a mouth?

And considering that it’s McDonalds, how do we know that isn’t actually a tongue, but a stylized version of vomit?

I passed a McD’s on the way to work today and found myself pondering the word “McDonalds”– an odd name for a burger joint for sure, and I know most of us never even think about it; the word has transcended it’s original meaning, and now represents a mental image of greasy food and two yellow arches. I sometimes joke “let’s go get some Irish food. . . at MCDONALDS.”

Well, I would’ve said that if it was “MacDonalds”, but it’s “McDonalds”, so I stand by my joke.

And yeah– what do I really care if one huge corporation (McD’s) is ripping off another (The Stones)? The Stones haven’t made a good record in 20 years, and McD’s hasn’t made a good burger in at least 40 years.

Yesterday I saw some neighborhood kids playing with the flyers, ‘tonguing’ each other. It was pretty funny. Yeah, should have had my camera on me.