Woodstock Promoters: RNC Logo ‘Strikingly Reminiscent’ of Festival Logo

Take a look at those two logos above. Let's note the similarities:

• Both involve a guitar
• Both involve an animal
• Both involve an animal perched upon a guitar

The Republican National Convention--which I'm assuming you've heard of, because I'm assuming you've been conscious for some point over the past four days--took place in Cleveland, home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm assuming this is why they chose the logo of the GOP elephant atop a guitar. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a guitar there because Reince Priebus (which I always feel like emphasizing is not a Game of Thrones character but is instead an actual human's name) and Mitch McConnell hang out on weekends and play covers of songs by The Stooges or Joy Division or something.

Personally, I wouldn't exactly call the thing a ripoff. I don't even think that there was a subconscious influence; the idea of an elephant being on a guitar seems somewhat strange to me because there was almost zero music emphasis this week (aside from The Donald's boxer/pro wrestler style intro to "We Are the Champions" on Monday), but I'm sure some designer was like "Uh... so, we've gotta use the elephant and we've gotta incorporate Cleveland. Hm. What's Cleveland known for? LeBron James... probably not going to work. The Browns utter failures over the past half-century? They won't like that. That time the river allegedly caught on fire from all the crap floating in it? Not the best message for the city. Huh. What else do we have? Oh, right. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

But regardless, the folks at Woodstock Ventures, the group that owns the rights to "trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property derived from the Woodstock Festival" have decided that this logo is "strikingly reminiscent" to that iconic bird sitting on the guitar. Accordingly, they've made the request that if the Republican Party wants to use what they consider to be their idea for a logo, they should use their ideas for society, too:

The Woodstock values are:

• Community: We are all in this world together. We all depend on each other, need one another, and we all benefit from a peaceful, loving, caring co-existence. It’s the Golden Rule, applied to all living things.
• Equality:Everyone deserves equal treatment and equal opportunity, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or sexual preference.
• Environmental Responsibility:We must protect our planet and its ecosystem from the dangers of climate change, diminishing biodiversity, the squandering of natural resources, and man-made pollution.
• Activism:Wherever there is injustice or unfairness in the world, it is our responsibility to take peaceful action, both separately and in groups, to make things better.
• Woodstock will always be about music.

For the entire statement from the Woodstock Ventures group, check out their post here.