The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: News

Media Credit: DANIEL SHIREY [Click to enlarge]

The University said in a hearing Tuesday that UGA's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws violated University copyright with a logo, but NORML's president said the logo was protected as intellectual property.

The logo in question, a cartoon bulldog smoking while studying underneath an arch, appeared on 50 shirts and NORML's Web site.

Megan Janasiewicz, program adviser of the Center for Student Organizations, said student organizations must receive approval to use the University's copyright.

"It's a quick process. It's easy to do, but it's essential," she said.

Janasiewicz said after Legal Affairs notified her of the problem, she sent e-mails to the student officers, asking them to return unsold shirts and remove the image from their Web site by the following evening.

"We had no communication from [NORML] during that time, no e-mail, no phone call," she said. Janasiewicz said she was surprised after Wojciech Kaczkowski - a junior from Krakow, Poland, and NORML's president - told her at the hearing that he had responded to her e-mail before the deadline.

Ed Mirecki, director of student activities and organizations, said at the hearing that he extended NORML's deadline when he found out its Web site developer was out of town.

"There were two opportunities for the group to take action," he said, but when the logo was still on the Web site at the deadline, Legal Affairs was notified and Enterprise Information and Technology Services was asked to block the site.

Kaczkowski said NORML was never informed of the deadline extension, and he had made every attempt to communicate with the proper authorities. He argued the drawing was the intellectual property of Greg Stone, the artist who created it.

"If you prosecute us over this image, it would be like prosecuting Andy Warhol for his painting of Campbell's Soup," he said.

Stone said at the hearing that he didn't look at University images as inspiration for drawing.

"For my primary model for my version of the bulldog I used a Looney Toons version," he said.

Kaczkowski said anyone who saw the drawing would immediately recognize it as a parody or satire. He said his group was being unfairly targeted.

The hearing ended Tuesday evening without resolution and will reconvene next Thursday.

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