Lagunitas & Knee Deep Discuss Similar Labels For Their IPA

We’ve seen quite a bit of chatter about the controversy between Lagunitas Brewing’s Tony Magee and Knee Deep Brewing.  The controversy came about because the Knee Deep IPA label closely resembles the Lagunitas IPA design.  Tony took to Twitter and it sounds like there may be an amicable solution…
This from Tony on RateBeer:

Greetings All…
The thing about brand identity issues is a big deal, but not for reasons of policing or property or of beating up on each other because we can… It’s nothing like that at all. As a founder-type my thoughts are almost always focused on an unknowable future. I talked this morning with the other brewer and we had a cool talk. The thing for both of us is about the future. I am assuming that LAG will continue to do well, and I am also assuming that they will do well, maybe they’ll do great and be the next big thing. That’s totally possible. At that point when they may have shrunk it down a bit and it is on a 12oz bottle or a 120z can and by compressing the art it looks similar (not precisely) to our labels, it’ll be difficult, ultimately for both of us. We’ll both want to look individual. So this is another ’good fences make good neighbors’ thing.

Why did I discuss it on twitter? Because the world of forums was going to have a say in it all anyway… so I just thought, this being your industry to patronize or not, I’d give you the first input. The guy that started this thread called that bush. I don’t think he’s had to decide about such fundamentally difficult things like this before, because if he had, he’d show a little more deference to my own unseen internal decision making process. Stuff like this is a drag but it is as important as making great beer which is something, contrary to a couple posters here, i think we rock with.
Cheers RB !