Comments on: Disney store offers, then pulls, Mickey t-shirt based on iconic Joy Division album cover

By: ocatagon

ocatagon — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:42:00 +0000

It’s not so much copying the image, but associating Disney with Joy Division, when you consider what the name Joy Division stood for and their rather independent spirit.

By: menevets

menevets — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:26:00 +0000

There’s a restriction on the amount of facial hair you can have though. I think it’s a 1/4 inch or something like that.

By: ChicagoD

ChicagoD — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:40:00 +0000

“The second thought made it impossible to buy the shirt.”

So you stole it?

By: dioptase

dioptase — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:09:00 +0000

There’s a judge in England who would disagree.
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/25/insane-english-copyright-rulin.html

By: EeyoreX

EeyoreX — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:27:00 +0000

You can still get that one. See the link I posted above.

By: Bubba73

Bubba73 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:50:00 +0000

From the linked Hook article.

”The original image, a diagram of waves from the first known pulsar recording published in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, is in the public domain.”

By: juepucta

juepucta — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:34:00 +0000

they’ve only stopped because Goofy hung himself

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:49:00 +0000

Factory Records and Disney? I’m not happy.

By: Erik Brown

Erik Brown — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:30:00 +0000

I was at Disneyland a couple weeks ago and saw this shirt on a rack out of the corner of my eye. Instantly I thought of the Joy Division album and thought it was cool. The second thought that followed was, if anyone used the mickey mouse shape for an album cover they would instantly be sued. The second thought made it impossible to buy the shirt.

By: Finnagain

Finnagain — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:05:00 +0000

Right. This is the kind of thing copyright was Not meant to inhibit. This is art building on past art, and should be encouraged.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:02:00 +0000

wow, that is freaky!

By: GlenBlank

GlenBlank — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:15:00 +0000

Oh, for Ghod’s sake. This is a common information-display technique. White-on-black is what you get on the video display/CRT; black-on white is what you get when you print it out. (Saves ink, doncha know.)

The image used for the Joy Division album is a superimposition of pulses from the first pulsar discovered, aligned on the pulsar’s period. Joy Division got the image from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, where it was printed black-on-white. It had previously appeared in Scientific American, reversed white-on-blue.

This is like having Disney create a jokey Venn diagram or a bar graph. only to be accused of ‘ripping off’ some band that used a Venn diagram or a bar graph on their album cover.

Just because you’ve never seen a graph like this except on a record album cover doesn’t mean that the idea is orginal to that record album. Joy Division didn’t invent this any more than they invented the bar graph.

By: Howard Hallis

Howard Hallis — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:54:00 +0000

This was actually the second Unknown Pleasures/Mickey hybrid. Disney Couture put out the following limited edition shirt back around 2006 that I got for my wife:

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:24:00 +0000

The original image was published in Scientific American. It made it from there into an encyclopedia of astronomy, then into a book of design elements, then onto the JD album cover.
Let me Google that for you…
http://adamcap.com/2011/05/history-of-joy-division-unknown-pleasures-album-art/

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:10:00 +0000

I’d avoid links and trigger words for a while.

By: thezyo

thezyo — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:03:00 +0000

The joy division cover looks like a steal from a program called (if I’m remembering correctly) ‘spulses’ for radio astronomy/pulsars. Here is an example of the science: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/524/2/1008/fulltext/40621.figures.html

By: EeyoreX

EeyoreX — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:38:00 +0000

Ooops. My bad.

By: Bad Juju

Bad Juju — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:35:00 +0000

Disney, get out of my closet! Thats my go-to shirt, when I don’t want to be Too Biker, or Too Geek, or, uh thats pretty much it. Who can take issue with waveforms and still give a nod to those in the know? Need to order another Unknown Pleasures shirt. Last one came from Retail Slut in Hollywood, which I’m pretty sure is no longer in existence. :(

Really, I blame Tim Burton for all this. Goths & Disneys, buying together, mass hysteria.

By: dculberson

dculberson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:29:00 +0000

Seems like a perfect transformative / fair use case to me. I wouldn’t – and in fact don’t – have a problem with it and love it. But given Disney’s litigious history I can understand some uproar. But anyone complaining that it’s a ripoff has no business doing so. It’s an homage, an adaptation, a remix. It’s no more a ripoff than any other creative endeavor.

By: ChurchHatesTucker

ChurchHatesTucker — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Really, you’d think Disney’s lawyers would have a bit more mettle to them, of all people. This clearly an homage, and not an attempt to steal IP.

That’s the problem. If they do it, it establishes an awkward precedent.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:52:00 +0000

It was in the spam bin, and now that you’ve posted it three times, the filter will be convinced that you’re a spammer and hold all your comments for a week or two.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:48:00 +0000

That’s Mickey with a serious case of smallpox.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:48:00 +0000

Yeah, Disqus is having the vapors again today. It gave me an error message for the first one and then published it sometime later.

By: Philip Hades

Philip Hades — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:28:00 +0000

I understand Disney employees and contractors are allowed to HAVE beards/facial hair, not grow them. You can either have it when you start or grow it during a vacation. But you are not allowed to gradually go from no facial hair to facial hair while working.

Full disclosure I was once told by a big name Disney artist “they won’t even let you near the door.”

By: EeyoreX

EeyoreX — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:57:00 +0000

I’m just gonna try to post this again. According to Mighty Fine, the manufacturers of the tshirt:

“This is a tee we designed at Mighty Fine and sold exclusively to Disney Parks some time ago; it was also since available at the Disney Store online. We’re hearing reports that it sold out there since yesterday (—) The origin of the waves image comes from a readout of the first radio pulsar discovered in space in 1967, but of course it became popularly associated as the cover image of Joy Division’s debut album

Link: http://www.welovefine.com/wp/?p=1012Mighty Fine is worth checking out anyhow, their business model is an interesting merge of old and new practices. They acquire licenses for brands like the Muppets or doctor Who, and then they let the fans of said franchises create and submit the artwork themselves. Fans know what fans want.

By: Evan G.

Evan G. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:53:00 +0000

The store’s description of the shirt clearly said that it was inspired by the Joy Division cover.

By: martinbolton

martinbolton — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:48:00 +0000

Joy Division oven gloves by half man half biscuit sums up the situation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEag0ss9pFU

By: allen

allen — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:19:00 +0000

I saw the shirt a couple of days ago. But it pales in comparison to that album for closer.

I don’t have a problem with Disney’s shirt, so long as they agree not to object to other joy division/disney crossovers put out by joy division fans. I think a new video for “she’s lost control” that features exclusively disney princesses would be wonderful.

By: dpamac

dpamac — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:17:00 +0000

The image the Joy Division used is from Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy and is the pulses from the first pulsar discovered. Joy Division reversed out the image, from black on white to white on black, and viola. I actually bought this shirt this summer and like it. I was also wearing the Disney Logo/Mordor mashup at the Magic Kingdom and cast members just about crapped themselves laughing. They loved it. But I like weird merging of fandoms. Besides, riffing on something goes in many directions. There was also one based on London Calling, see below.

Instead of seeing it as Disney being evil, I just figured they finally got someone cool working in the products division. But, then, I liked the shirt so I guess I’m the demographic.

By: EeyoreX

EeyoreX — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:16:00 +0000

Huh, my comment about Mighty Fine (the manufacturers of this tshirt) just plum disappeared when I submitted.
What’d I do wrong?