You might think that the four-lined artwork — so simple a three-year-old could draw a reasonable facsimile of it — was the stoned brainchild of some self-styled artist on Haight-Ashbury, who later graduated to painting VW buses.
You would be wrong. Introduced to the world by its inventor, British graphic designer Gerald Holtom, at a Ban the Bomb rally in England on April 4, 1958, the symbol has had a much stormier history than a symbol for peace should have: criticized, vilified, co-opted by virtually every movement (women's rights, environmental groups, civil rights, gay rights and every anti-war group from every generation since), slapped on every type of bag, garment, footwear and poster around, to the point where there's only one group that hasn't embraced the symbol: the U.S. Copyright Office.
Holtom, as it turns out, never copyrighted what is, no doubt, his most famous work, meaning that the symbol is in the public domain and anyone can use it. The folks who have put it on millions of items haven't paid its designer, its creator, its originator a dime.
Folks who make materials for war appear to profit handsomely. Peace, apparently, is much less lucrative.
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