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It doesn't seem remotely possible to me that, as this article implies, some guy really owns the idea/copyright/etc of a smiley face :)
It's an extremely simple graphical symbol that's obviously below the threshold of originality and it's part of, say, Unicode. The smiley face is obviously in the public domain. I don't know if, I mean, does he just own the one specific design of it? The article should be more clear on this. jp×g🗯️23:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Smiley Company SPRL "claims" to "own" the "smiley" symbol and the word "smiley" base on the fact they filed for and obtain trademarks and copyright to theier smiley face in over 100 countries. The Smiley Company claimsWhile working for the newspaper France-Soir, Franklin Loufrani "design" October of 1971 Loufrani filed for a trademark in France. There was a major "smile button(AKA smiley face)" fad in 1971 in September that year an AP news stories with photo of Harvey Bell, Joy P. Young, and a drawing of a "smile face" ( Clipped from US, Rhode Island, Newport, Newport Daily News, September 10, 1971 https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-sep-10-1971-4178968/ ) ran in newspaper.
In the past The Smiley Company has stated "The first human representation of the Smiley logo comes from France in the form of a stone which is currently being exhibited at the museum of Natural Sciences in Nimes. The stone, itself found in a cave in Nimes, goes back to the Neolithic era (2500 BC) and is a perfectly round pebble with two round eyes and a mouth shaped as an arch of a circle." (The Smiley Company webpage,JAN 19 2011, Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120119044109/http://www.smileycompany.com/smile/history/)
Galloping Ghosts! by Bill Ross Anniston Star ,Oct 26, 1958 Page 50 states "Collect six empty pop bottles and six cone-shaped paper cups. With crayons draw smiley faces on three of the cups and scary ones on the others" Bill Ross assumes kids knew how to draw a "smiley face" https://newspaperarchive.com/anniston-star-oct-26-1958-p-50/
@JPxG: there seems to be some confusion. “Some guy” doesn’t own the smiley face, but a commonly used logo is owned by a licensing corporation. This is no different from Nike owning the swoosh tick, or Puma having a copyright of an image representing the animal. Also you refer to ":)" in your message. See Scott Fahlman if you want to understand more about that. Maybe a section could be introduced to the company page at some stage to help explain all this however.
@Bayoustarwatch: there is some great information there, but I'm not really sure where that belongs. Definitely not on a company page, but I would argue is that even the history of "the smiley?" Or is it more about ideograms? And how the ideogram transformed into a well known pop culture icon (the smiley)?FelixFLB (talk) 16:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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