this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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I'm pretty sure :) has already existed before that. They probably already drew it into sand ten thousand years ago.
Probably. The yellow circle around the smiley is what's unique here.
Whoa it's wild that it was commissioned by a company as a way to improve staff morale after a series of mergers and acquisitions. Imagine being worried about your job in an era when job hopping was not common, & you get a smiley face pin from management.
Imagine if this was copyrighted, now imagine a million things even more trivial than this were copyrighted. That is the current state of affairs with copyrights and patents in tech
~~It is copyrighted lol. That's why you don't see that specific design much anymore.~~ I was sure I read somewhere that the design was in copyright hell, which is why it isn't used anymore. Looks like I'm wrong.
Edit: actually, after looking more into this guy, the design is public domain. He made a whopping $45 off the design while others have made millions.
That's how it usually goes, one person works and creates something, then some other person makes a shitton of money off of it
The people who argue against copyright need to understand that one of the functions of copyright is to prevent companies with deep pockets from taking the profits you deserve for your hard work.
"people who argue against copyright" tend to be pretty well informed on the history of it, and aware of the way it's used today. Generally, they argue that it is not performing that function, and may often work the other way around.
One of the advantages of copyleft, shame the only people who only know about it are the weirdos who use Lemmy.
I'm not sure how official "copyleft" is, but it reads like the creative commons licence which which falls under copyright.
So yes, one of the advantages, and explicit purposes, of copyright is that you get to maintain control of how your intellectual property is used.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smiley_Company
I think this is the company that owns or owned some trademarks related to a smiley face.
Pretty easy to imagine. The smiley face is copyrighted.
Yeah, that's their point.
He was actually a pretty cool dude.
[Harvey Ball] never applied for a trademark for the iconic smiley image and only earned $45 for his efforts. Ball later founded the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation in 1999, a non-profit charitable trust that supports children's causes.
"Have a nice day!"
Legendary lifework right there.
I saw that guy in Forrest Gump!
Damn he looks tired
Man, I was looking for some new sandals the other day and found some solid yellow ones with this smiley face on the strap but they only had it in size 11 women's. 😩
Realizing I was in the wrong section, I go one aisle over to the men's and everything is just black. :/ Gimme some fuckin' color!