[Clipart] Logos and Names

[Nathan Eady]

Oleg Koptev <koptev.oleg at gmail.com> writes:

> I guess when Apple or someone else will copyright simple graphic
> forms?  Circles, triangles, rectangles. Nothing will surprise me

Simple geographic forms like that are not individually eligible for
copyright protection (although a specific arrangement of several of them
potentially might be).  

Even the Nike logo (the swoosh) is not protected by copyright, because
it's too simple.  (It is, however, protected by trademark.  Vigorously.
And I consider it to be one of the best-designed corporate logos in the
history of marketing, because it's the perfect combination of simple and
distinctive that allows it to be highly recognizeable even under quite
adverse conditions.  Somebody can be wearing a Nike shirt, with the logo
on the front, and you can recognize it as such at a glance from several
blocks away, in the dark, even though more than half of the logo is
hidden behind their arm and the bag they're carrying.  It's hard to get
that kind of recognition value in a logo complex enough to be eligible
for copyright protection, and that's what trademark is for anyway.)

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library