Bloody vultures! Cheeky Spanish paraglider firm pinched El Reg's mascot

An, er, eagle-eyed Reg reader holidaying in Spain has spotted an uncanny resemblance between this organ's beloved mascot and an equally vulturine logo being used by a peninsular paragliding concern. Urubu Parapente, which offers paragliding holidays in Andalusia, has entirely coincidentally appropriated our masthead. …

[Wellyboot]

Vulture Squadron!

Do they have a D.Dastardly in charge.

[chivo243]

Re: Vulture Squadron!

With Muttly second in command?

[John G Imrie]

Re: Vulture Squadron!

Stop that pidgin, now!

[Khaptain]

After 2 seconds in Google Search

Earilly uncanny how much this resembles an identical copy...

https://regmedia.co.uk/media/363.gif

Thet Belgian must have been sipping a little bit too many Orval Trappists and forgot that he did some googling...

[Tezfair]

Lazy designers?

Customer of mine several years back was going through a marketing refresh and had a proposed new logo. As soon as I saw it I said it was the same as Creative Labs A - the like-an-upside-down V with a line at the bottom. It wasn't similar, it was the same, thickness, font, distance between items.

They didn't use it in the end.

[Anonymous Coward]

Names have been changed to protect the innocent

While out in Spain on a supplier meeting (yes, it did have to be there rather than Slough), an eagle eyed colleague spotted a large billboard with a logo rather similar to our own.

Unfortunately it was for an escort agency

[Huw D]

Bloody kids. Think everything on the internet is free and a small modification is "fair use".

</sarcasm>

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloody kids! Think everything on the internet is free and a small modification is "fair use".

</plagarism>

[Sgt_Oddball]

Good artists borrow...

Great artists steal.

- Pablo Picasso

[steviebuk]

Re: Good artists borrow...

Google Richard Prince. One of the many reasons "Art" annoys me. I liked it at school but what others saw as shit, lots more would see as AMAZING and said shit would sell for millions but some great art would be ignored. Richard Prince has somewhat proved my point. Making millions by copying others work and making slight alterations. Look at his work on Instagram feeds. So he makes millions from it, the original owners for some of the pieces get no recognition.

We ran a 'not very scientific' experiment back in school in the late 80s, early 90s. We got a piece of our art and a piece of the "Favourite" art teaching in the art department art. Another art teacher who was incapable of controlling any of her classes (even confirmed by the head of art as I think she didn't know what to do with her, cause she couldn't very well sack her), thought the "Favourite" was great. So we took his work and told her it was arse. She said it wasn't very good. We took our art and said it was his, she said it was great.

She proved my point that day. I've been annoyed with the perception of art ever since. I see the amazing pencil drawings done by people on YouTube, that look photo realistic but they get no recognition. Yet art by the like of Jackson Pollock is deemed AMAZING! and worth millions. One of his "drip" paintings sold in 2006 for £140million. What the actual FUCK!

['s water music]

Re: Good artists borrow...

when I heard what Jackson Pollocks sell for I said 'my kid could do that'. The little fucker still hasn't though.

[steviebuk]

Re: Good artists borrow...

When will we be able to edit our posts so I can stop looking like an idiot*.

*Actually it won't stop me looking like an idiot but just a little less embarrased by the inability to proof read.

[Crucial Decimal]

Re: Good artists borrow...

A writer does not own words any more than a painter owns colours. So lets dispense with this originality fetish… Look, listen and transcribe and forget about being original.”

― William S. Burroughs

[Huw D]

Well played, Sir. Well played.

[Semtex451]

I have a packet of drawer handles from PRC that uses a copy of El Reg's Vulture on the branding

[Neil Barnes]

It's obviously an effective logo - their website offers holidays based in Algodonales, and I saw it in Ager - a thousand kilometers away...

[Shrek]

Must be the same designer as Rich Energy used...

Hmmm... I wonder if they used the same designers as Rich Energy used to design their logo (Very, very similar to Whyte Bikes...)

https://twitter.com/WhyteBikes/status/1138100890768945152

Oh and likely something of a Streisand effect with their shouty Twitter responses.

[Dave 126]

Re: Must be the same designer as Rich Energy used...

IT connection: Data Logging.

Martyn Whyte used to be an F1 suspension engineer, and a mountain biker in his free time. Deciding that current suspension bikes could be better, he took a Marin bike and made it into an adjustable rig to which he attached sensors and data loggers - a technique he'd used for Schumacher's winning Benneton car. He rode the bike in different configurations collecting data to help him develop the geometry of mountain bike that proved popular.

[LordHighFixer]

Co-Branding?

Maybe they could be "The Official Spanish Paraglider outfit for The Register" ??

[bpfh]

Re: Co-Branding?

> Maybe they could be "The Official Spanish Paraglider outfit for The Register" ??

Maybe they could get LOHAN launched if they are friendly enough with the local Policía...

[Chris G]

Vulture flocking

Vultures flock to many parts of Spain in Summer.

Mostly to rip off tourists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Vulture flocking

The whole point of tourists is ripping them off.

Mind you, at least in the UK I rarely had to deal with British tourists, the Spanish have my sympathy.

[Zarno]

There's a wonderful opportunity here.

I sense a "Something for the weekend" paragliding holiday special in the works.

Maybe a review of an IOT flight watch that tweets the excitement levels, starts the coffee maker, and re-orders fresh trousers for delivery to the landing zone?

An automatic bodycam that gives point-of-terror views, and then blackmails you into paying the subscription fee to not post the high pitched screaming bits to youtube?

A pint to both parties on this one, and be sure to send em some tat in return!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: There's a wonderful opportunity here.

"be sure to send em some tat in return!"

Hey, they just some free advertising targetted at an audience which probably has significant numbers of people with disposable income and (judging by some of the comments here over the years) are into adventure holidays.

[Blockchain commentard]

How about getting them to fly high and launch a paper plane - new world record for launching a paper plane from a paraglider?

[ivan5]

Or even launch a paper rocket plane - cuts out the balloon stage.

[Neil Barnes]

Well, on Sunday at Ager I heard there were pilots at 3,700 metres but I don't think we can get up to 30,000 metres, like the balloons did/were planned to. Kinda hard to fly in 1mbar pressure, and not that easy to breathe, either!

[The First Dave]

Concorde flew at well over 30,000 metres, and its engines and passengers all breathed well enough.

[Tromos]

No it didn't - less than 2/3rds of that. Don't confuse metres with feet.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean 30000ft, not 30000m, as Concorde's max altitude is 18,300 metres (60,039 ft)

Devil's in the details eh, those pesky units.

[Eddy Ito]

Then there's the pesky detail that the cabin is pressurized so naturally the passengers could breathe just fine.

[chivo243]

+1

Lester would be tickled!

[chivo243]

We ripped off Van Halen

A musical experiment I was involved in just out of Uni had the initials H A We just flipped the Van Halen logo upside down. We weren't good, but we couldn't win the worst band contest.

[Rich 11]

Re: We ripped off Van Halen

but we couldn't win the worst band contest.

Then you weren't trying hard enough.

[Gerhard Mack]

Cheap web designers

Years ago, the company I worked for at the time got a phone call: "look, we don't mind you ripping off our site design, but could you at least remove our name from the html comments?" Web dev thought no one would ever notice.

[x 7]

One of them big buzzards dumping on your parachute could give you a bad day.........

[Neil Barnes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGzzSIZvA40

(swears in Russian, some English subtitles, maybe NSFW)

[BebopWeBop]

"hey Joe - I fancy something a little bigger for lunch, say slow moving meat"

[Jamesit]

"Urubu's site is here if you fancy a glide or some bootlegged merch."

With NoScript I just get a blank page, Why do people design websites that need scripts to work? Isn't it easier to make one without scripts?

[Craig 2]

Nobody actually knows how to code a page in HTML any more, all they know is how to click & drag various frameworks, plugins and libraries into one big mish-mash. Including the logo it seems...

[Draco]

It's floating around the web

This site - claiming "download free logo" - has the logo available:

http://logosolusa.com/the-register-logo.html

Sophos has it on one of their pages:

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/21/the-state-of-facebook-security/

Also, good to know you can buy Reg vultures for your car window from AliExpress (and ... they are "patriotic" - whatever that means):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EARLFAMILY-15cm-x-15cm-Old-Buzzard-Vpu-1-Us-Navy-Logo-Style-1-Patriotic-Vinyl-Window/32999529148.html

[Tezfair]

Re: It's floating around the web

So the question is, did el reg commission the design or lift it themselves?

[david 12]

Re: It's floating around the web

That is NOT a standard navy 'Old Buzzard' logo. Where ever they got it from, they didn't get it from the navy Old Buzzards. Perhaps the Old Buzzards protect their logo too strongly in America?

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal team

For Santa Cruz Operation might be available if you want to pursue this issue over which I feel you have a legitimate grievance

[Hazmoid]

Think you are hard done by

For the ultimate in rip-offs, visit Bali. For any company that has made it big in Australia, there will be a cafe or company in Bali that uses their logo and branding.

For example my wife just got back and took a photo of a nightclub that offers Bunnings sausage sizzles, along with the Bunnings green and red logo.