stijlfigurant is currently Browsing Computerlove
April 22, 2006 Last login on:
May 25, 2008
Blog Item
November 3rd, 2007
Reclaim Magenta !

The German telecom company T-Mobile is stealing the color magenta! We have to stop them! T-Mobile started sueing Dutch companies which use magenta in print and commercial campaigns. They already sued Compello and they are urging "Slam FM" and "100% NL" to quit using magenta as well!
T-Mobile claims to own the rights for the use of magenta! which is completely bonkers! Everyone should be allowed to use magenta anywhere, anytime! It's part of CMYK, without magenta printing would be a lot uglier!
So its time to smack some sense into T-Mobile! Here we can start off with a petition for reclaiming Magenta.

Comments (20)
I thought they went insane when I first heard this...
Isn't magenta a patented colour from Pantone anyway? If so, I think Pantone should start sueing T-Mobile for this action.
i use magenta quite a lot,
they really can't sue them, its not like coke red, thats actualy patended by coke..
What's next, they sue every fullcolor print cause it uses magenta in the print process?
lol, pathetic t-mobile..
ridiculous!!!! ADIDAS Will buy C, T-Mobile owns M (ahahah!) Sony will buy Y, Versace will grab K ... And designers have to quit their jobs! This is ridiculous!!!
hey, stijlfigurant! you steal letters of english alphabet to write this message!
RECLAME LETTERS!
PS. How much T-Mobile paid you?
PPS. Stupid news.
haha... CLOWWWNNNSSS
is this some new form of viral advertising?
Even the title of this post sounds like a good slogan for a new cellphone.
stupid news? that would be reading your post. if you think t-mobile is right, just say so instead.
regarding reclaim letters. ABSOLUT (famous swedish vodka), owns the word "ABSOLUT", but thats a litelbit different as it shapes the brand id.
Ex. if RADIO-NL would take the same blue as ABSOLUT, there would still be way diffrent from each other. See, thats why this thing with T-Mobile dont make sense.
Ciao
where can we read about this incindent from a reliable source?
if you can read dutch, there are a couple of dutch newspapers that wrote about this
De Volkskrant
De Dag
sO FUNNY!
Well, if you post, make sure the links work. I get a 404.
link works for me.
never heard of t-mobile. and acts of stupidity like these are an annoying way how to reach to my attention.
this is either really pathetic or really serious. imo.
if companies in the states can patent seeds and organic life forms, what's to stop a company like t-mobile. once they win in court, other companies will follow. The problem is courts and governments supporting corporations and not individuals.
t mobile should go fuck herself hard
Designers love to overreact over everything related to what they like to claim as their own specialized area of knowledge, and in doing so expose themselves as complete ignorants. I'm preety sure what's been patented is the use of magenta as the main brand colour, within the same business areas. T-Mobile's magenta isn't pure magenta by the way, and even if it was, i'm sure it could be registered as a brand colour, the same way that magenta with 10% black could. That would not stop people from using the pigment - just not the exact same colour as a brand element!
"Everyone should be allowed to use magenta anywhere, anytime! It's part of the colorspectrum and the colorspectrum should always be free!"
Well, that's just a hilarious line, as any moron should know that all colours are part of the colour spectrum, as the colour spectrum is the spectrum of all visible colours.*
*I actually screwed myself over with this one: magenta isn't actually part of the spectrum, it's an extra-spectral color, meaning it cannot be generated by a single wavelength of light. (source: Wikipedia)
You can't copyright a colour. This sounds like a PR stunt.
Is it possible to boycott T-mobile?