Crystal Castles Settle Lawsuit Over "Bruised Madonna" Image
9/22/2008 By Brock Thiessen

The long-standing “bruised Madonna” dispute between Crystal Castles and graphic artist Trevor Brown is finally over. Via Brown’s Baby Art Blog, he has revealed that the Toronto duo’s management has given in and paid the artist for the use of his Madonna logo and bought the rights to his image. This comes after years of legal wrangling between the two parties because of Crystal Castles’ unsanctioned, uncredited and unpaid use of Brown’s art on flyers, T-shirts and record releases.

"Hallelujah. It's a miracle, there is a god!" Brown wrote on his blog. "Crystal Castles have redeemed themselves — I've been paid off!"

Brown added that while Crystal Castles themselves have not apologized, their management has, writing that he hopes this finally puts the ugly fiasco behind him. Yet from what Brown had to say in his post, you can still sense a bit of bitterness in his words.

“For me it was a matter of principles more than the money itself,” Brown said. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned in regard to matters of integrity and common decency in this download generation age — but a little courtesy would not go amiss for crystal castles too. They were doing themselves no favours with the “so what, who cares” attitude. It might impress every snotty 17-year-old on the block, but as seen, it loses them the respect of more mature music fans and critics. But at last they’ve woken up to the fact this was their mess to clean up. It was pissing on their career more than mine — the negative press was never going to stop,

“Absolution can never be absolute of course, but I think Crystal Castles have paid the penalty for their indiscretions. Let’s move on.”
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