Police Mascot Shot In The Head

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Fake MPD mascot used on T-shirts
A case in which three men sold T-shirts with a look-alike of the Metropolitan Police Department's popular mascot Pipo-kun has been referred to prosecutors for alleged trademark infringement, sources said. The three company employees from Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, sold 85 T-shirts from July 2006 to August 2007. The sources said the men, aged 22 to 28, admitted selling the shirts to raise money to launch a brand of bags. Created in 1987, Pipo-kun appeared in a TV police drama.

[james]

wonder if japan has any "fair use" laws on the book with respect to parody..

[alicia454]

I don't really wear t-shirts, but a coffee mug with that logo would be sweet. Maybe I can render something similar in Adobe Illustrator, and put it up on CafePress.

No apologies with regard to my opinion of the contemptible and racist Japanese police. They beat/torture innocent suspects, have close ties to organized gangs (Yakuza), and actively support racist gangs (Uyoku Dantai).

Unlike other countries, where I am very supportive of the police, I hold the Japanese police in complete contempt. Sure there are some decent police officers who are not racist and act in a reasonable manner, but these are the minority, and they are not able to change the policies of their police forces or the behaviour of their fellow officers.

[Charles]

Ha.. My brother-in-law made some silk screened t shirts with altered versions of the Carl's Jr. logo, the "Happy Star." He got a cease and desist letter from Carl's corporate. He'd already sold all the shirts from the first printing so he just discontinued it, and it became a collector's item.

[Iraira]

Japan's enforcement of copyright laws is sketchy to say the least. On the 3rd floor of the Nakano Broadway otaku shopping center, there is a place that sells parody t-shirts. Found a nice one of Miffy with a gun in his hand and a bullet-riddled Hello Kitty laying there in a pool of blood. That didn't seem to be a problem for the all-powerful San Rio company.
Perhaps it was the allusion to offing pigs that got the cops all irked, kinda like how the FBI investigated NWA after "Fuck the Police" was released, Suicidal's "I Shot Reagan", or the Body Count "Cop Killer" BS controversy.

You piss off the wrong people who don't find the joke funny, and they get the lawyer wrecking ball rolling to cease and desist.