An Australia Day artwork by student Jessie Du will be viewed by millions on Google’s home page today but one feature of her original design is conspicuously absent – the Aboriginal flag.
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The designer of the flag, Harold Thomas, who owns the copyright to the flag, refused to give Google permission to reproduce the design on its website, Google said.“We were willing to do pretty much whatever we could but in the end he decided that he just wasn’t happy with it,” the Google spokeswoman said.
But in a phone interview, Thomas, who lives in Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory, said he refused only because Google did not approach him in a respectful way and had demanded to reproduce the flag without charge.
“I said well you can use it but there’s a fee component and the [Google] person said: ‘Oh we can’t do that, we can’t pay for it, we’ll have to ask the girl to change it [the logo] if we have to pay for it,’ ” Thomas said.
“So ever since that time we’ve been argy bargying over how we should go about it and in the end it was a pittance offer so I decided why bother?”
Google refutes this but would not provide further comment.
Google stingy? The owner of the artwork greedy? Or is there a political aspect to this?
Re #7: LDA, to each his own. I see a sun floating on a sea of blood under a black sky.
The flag was originally designed for protesting aboriginal land rights, and it definitely works well for anger and retaliation.
The designer says the red represents the red earth. He could be colour blind… or maybe he was expecting a blood bath.
#17 Is that why there is *NO* America Day?
#10 To many aboriginals the 26th of Jan is the day they were invaded. Using their flag on this day is antagonistic. Not all Aborigines feel this way, but a large enough percentage that it is insensitive to do so. There used to be protests a around the country by Aborigines on this day. I’m all for including them, but only if they want to be, and definitely not in such a culturally insensitive way.
I am Australian, I’ve been friends with several people with Aboriginal heritage over the years. I speak from first hand experience.
#10 where are you from?
I am wondering if we should pay dinosaurs for the use of their land? Some people just use any opportunity to cash in regardless of context.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, sue.
Google isn’t making money off this. They are honoring somebody. If the guy didn’t want his work used without a big pay off then he’s welcome to keep it.
Of course his organization needs to dump his trash and use something that people can use without paying a fee. The real state flag would have been a better choice.
# 21 Skeptic
Agreed. To each their own.
When I was about 8 or 9 (1986/87) I asked my friend (who was aboriginal) if the red was blood and he said it was the land too (black/the people & yellow/sun), I took his word for it. If anything I originally thought the blood was for the Aborigines that had been massacred over 150 years, not what they intended to do to others (and which they have not attempted to do).
It was not hard for me to believe him as where I grew-up the ground was almost red (like Uluru). I guess the designer is the only one that knows for sure.
Australian animals surrounding the aboriginal flag? So evidently the designer of the Google image equates aboriginal people with animals, surely no one can see how offensive that is *insert $1.99 sarcasm icon*.