I never saw Minor Threat live, but I did have the pleasure of seeing Fugazi (another of Ian MacKaye’s bands) two or three times (always a good show, BTW). So I was offended to hear that Nike decided to, without permission from the band, nick the design from a Minor Threat album cover.
Kottke thinks that doing so should be seen as a matter of free artistic expression, which it would be if we were discussing an art exhibit. But what we’re discussing is a huge company appropriating the image of an artist (that is MacKaye in the cover shot) without permission.
You would have thought Nike’s legal team would be familiar with how this played out many years ago, when Frito Lay decided to use a Tom Waits look-and-sound-alike to hock chips (Waits sued and won a multi-million dollar settlement).
The point that Kottke misses is this: artists have the right not to be the unwilling design department fodder of commercial industries. Any artist who wants to celebrate or make fun of Minor Threat by appropriating and modifying images already has the freedom to do so. But design hacks in the PR department aren’t allowed to do the same to push their brands.
To their credit, Nike have appologized and pulled the ads.