The related issues have been discussed on Commons, Enwiki, and Meta, at various times and places in the past. There is a legitimate concern that the inclusion of non-free logos is bad for reusers. On sites like Commons, which are expected to be exclusively free content, it also creates confusion to have thousands of non-free logos and derivatives. Personally, I also feel that it sets a bad example for a free content company like WMF not to have any formal policy on the third party use of their logos. Even within Wikimedia there is no agreement about what is allowed and what isn't, except that Mike and others have generally said they don't object to most uses by the community, even while reserving full copyright control and the right to object in the future. It has been three or four years since I first asked members of the WMF to draft a policy on logo use that would be clear about what is allowed both in the community and for reusers. One option is to release the logos under copyleft, but that has historically been flatly rejected by the WMF on the grounds that copyright is necessary for brand protection. I don't think copyleft is incompatible with brand protection, but even if one assumes it is, that isn't the only option. One could still write a policy that made it clear internally and externally that logos can included and reused alongside Wikimedia content, and when derivatives can be created, without going all the way to copyleft. Given that we don't have clear policies regarding logo use, I think the Swedish Wikipedia decision is entirely defensible. I don't think it is a good outcome, however. A good outcome would be one that explicitly establishes the allowed uses of the logos and their compatibility with our larger free content mission. Most of the time when this issue comes up, people just shrug and look the other way, but I don't really think that is a good approach for people that want to be respectful of copyrights. I would also note that the Meta community moved to a public domain logo some time ago in part because of the desire to avoid a copyrighted logo. -Robert Rohde

Marcus Buck wrote: Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation.... KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc(a)ktchan.info> wrote: It is not "common sense" to depend on the relationship between the project and the hosting organisation when dealing with free content. downstream users of the content are not Wikimedia projects. -- John Vandenberg

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:58 AM, Przykuta <przykuta(a)o2.pl> wrote: They could, but that doesn't make it right. If someone uploads this image under cc-by-sa that would be just as much copyright violation as doing the same with any other image, if that person did not have permission from the Wikimedia Foundation to do so. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc(a)ktchan.info> wrote: If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )". I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly. We can't stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an encyclopedia. If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

Cary Bass wrote: Links are nice.[1] MZMcBride [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29

George Herbert wrote: Read this thread before making such claims. The English Wikipedia did have this conversation and the outcome was nothing similar to what you've said. Huh? There is a large subset of users on some Wikimedia wikis who do nothing more than "play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights." To say it's incompatible with participation is ludicrous. MZMcBride

No, this is a profoundly stupid decision that has no logical sense. A "free" license is a copyright license. On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Marcus Buck <me(a)marcusbuck.org> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Marcus Buck <me(a)marcusbuck.org> wrote: Just allow me to ask for a clarification. We're talking about article space, right? This means that Wikimedia logos are now _not used_ in the Swedish Wikipedia to illustrate articles on the Wikimedia projects, I suppose. Right? But as I understood Lennart's first email, I think that sv Wikipedia also has decided not to use the logos even on internal navigation templates and such to link/identify other Wikimedia projects, right? What about the top left corner of every page, has it also been decided that the Wikipedia logo used to identify the website should go too? Thanks for your clarification on this. Cheers, Delphine -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:25 AM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: If that is the case, while I understand and actually respect the decision not to use Wikimedia logos _to illustrate articles_ (although I don't agree with it), I find it extremely inconsequent and illogical to take away the logos that are in navigation templates and pointing to other material in other Wikimedia projects. As far as I'm concerned, these are part of the UI as much as the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner, and, more important, I find this decision actually harms our mission of "distributing" free content. If Wikimedia projects don't help themselves, I wonder who will. Delphine -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: Keep in mind that navigational templates - which land at Wikipedia projects - count as the explicitly licensed "links to our site" usage of all our templates. Mike conveniently made that all OK for anyone to do without additional permission requests or complications anyways. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com