A Penny Arcade comic strip spoof from last Monday (mirrored here) was removed after American Greetings objected to the use of Strawberry Shortcake characters. You can check out the pertinent Penny Arcade forum, Slashdot posting, or Metafilter discussion for more information, rants, etc. Personally, I think this a huge overreaction to what is obviously a parody that no one would mistake for the original. I didn’t even think that Strawberry Shortcake was around anymore; the last I remember was my sister playing with the dolls in the mid-‘80s. I know that there are protection of copyright issues, but there are also laws that protect the rights of parodies. American Greetings would do well to realize that it’s only alienating itself here…
