COREL TO CENSOR ALL CLIP ART WORLDWIDE

[nobody@cypherpunks.ca (John Anonymous MacDonald)]

Swastikas halt Corel sales
By Reuters
November 25, 1996, 12 p.m. PT

    MUNICH, Germany--Corel (COSFF) software company
    has temporarily halted sales of its top-selling Corel Draw
    graphics program in Germany because it includes four
    banned Nazi symbols, a company spokesman said today.

    The Canadian company will remove three drawings of Adolf
    Hitler and one swastika from future versions of its popular
    software, spokesman Thomas Layer said.

    It is also distributing warning labels to be placed on versions
    now being sold, Layer said. The label warns that the
    "improper use of digital images and symbols" found in the
    programs Corel Draw 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 is prohibited in
    Germany, which bans public displays of Nazi symbols.

    Munich's state prosecutor launched an investigation into
    the software on October 2 after learning that someone had
    used the banned images to print business cards for a
    neo-Nazi group, Layer said.

    This is not the first time that the company has had complaints
    due to their clip art images.  In 1992, pressure from US Black
    rights organisations forced drawings of the Ku Kux Klan to be
    removed from the collection.

    Consideration is also being given to the removal of other images
    from the collection, either due to legal restrictions in
    various countries, or due to complaints from organisations
    such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center.  Images considered for
    removal include a burning US flag, Josef Stalin, the Star of
    David icon, a cannabis leaf, and a drawing of a woman in a
    bathing costume.

    Corel Draw provides more than 24,000 clip art drawings and
    symbols that computer users can copy. The company
    suspended the sales on November 19.