A major Chinese city has been widely criticised after its newly elected tourism logo looked a lot like Disney's trademark.
Dalian, a city on the country's eastern coast, revealed the design last week after it beat nearly 1,000 rivals in a competition.
But it didn't take observers long to notice the high similarity between the illustration and the symbol of the Disneyland.
Web users have accused the city's authority as well as the logo's designer of plagiarism in a trending topic page, which has gathered more than 160 million clicks.
The competition's organiser said it was investigating the matter.
The winning graphic was presented by Dalian Culture and Tourism Bureau in an official social media release last Thursday.
Situated in the Liaoning Province in north-eastern China, Dalian has a population of around six million and is most famous for its football.
In the statement, the jury said the winner was chosen from nearly 1,000 entries which had been submitted to them over three months.
It said the competition was fierce and the process of selection was strict.
The logo, set to be used on Dalian's official souvenirs, consists of four parts: an illustration of the city's landmarks, its name in Chinese character, its name in romanised spelling and a tourism slogan.
'A few simple strokes showcase the city's character fully,' the statement praised of the design.
Controversy erupted after web users claimed that the letter 'D', 'a', 'n' and the swoop above 'i' were nearly identical to those in the Disney's logo.
On Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, one person challenged the qualification of the jury members: 'Did they just drag someone off the street to be the judge of this competition?'
A second reader pointed out: 'The [plagiarism in] D is too obvious. The designer was bold.'
A third web user wondered if Disney would take legal actions: 'If [the logo] is really used, will Disney use their huge team of lawyers?'
There are two Disneyland resorts in China, one in Shanghai and one in Hong Kong.
The designer of the logo claimed that they had found the font from a free font library and it should not cause copyright infringement issues, a worker at Dalian Culture and Tourism Bureau told BJ News.
The organiser of the logo competition said on Monday that it had noticed criticism from the public and launched an investigation into the matter.
It said that the regulations of the competition had made it clear that all participants should be the sole copyright owner of their design.
It added that the winner's award would be withdrawn if the plagiarism proved to be true.
The authority is yet to announce the result of the probe as of writing.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
