Here’s Laugh it Off’s version of what the Black Labour T-shirt was about. It was first published in 2000 just as the three year court battle was kicking off.

The shirt is not statement about SAB and how they might treat their staff. It is a statement about how white South Africans feel guilty about the exploitation of black people in our countries past. Initially our business was not neccesarily one of making statements or being political but just about making people laugh, a shirt that holds up a mirror to the contadictions of every day South African life. Using the Black Label logo was merely a vehicle, no one would have bought or read the shirt if it had merely said “South Africans feel guilty about exploiting black people.”

What has become an issue for us now is how brands feel they are so sacred that they are gaurded by a mile high wall of patent and copyright law. God forbid that their precious brand identity, fabricated from tasteful lies, be challenged by anyone in anyway. Black Label are suing us because we are using their logo illegaly. Fair enough if we were selling beer with an indetical label to Black Labour but we are selling T-Shirts. We are not challenging their share in the beer market. They are suing us because they feel their delicate brand identity is being shaken by our T-shirts.

What’s interesting is that the only people who care if you sell T-shirts using other brands logo’s are those who made them. The public don’t care beacause there is nothing ethically wrong about it. Macdonalds stick their logo everywhere they can, they BRAND, if they could they would brand the whole world, along with this they portray a feel and a lifestyle about their brand through advertising. To the masses = Happy, fun, healthy . If I ran a Billboard simply saying =cheap&evil I would get sued. Why? What do these brands have to hide? Their must be a reason why people want to display hate propaganda about brands and if they were free to do so maybe brands would be forced to be ethical and truthful, they couldn’t hide behind lalws that protect what ever fabrication they wish to portray. Maybe they would spend more energy trying to make the best product they can and building a better world, and those products that aren’t ethical would dissapear?