[WikiEN-l] New York Times: Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People

[Joseph Reagle]

On Tuesday 25 August 2009, Andrew Turvey wrote:
> I had an interesting conversation with a senior BBC exec on this the other day. Apparently, their lawyers aren't sufficiently comfortable with the copyright violation checking on Wikimedia Commons to be able to rely on free photographs, so they don't use them. Bizarrely they'd rather pay someone for an image, and hence be able to sue them if they had copyright problems, than get it for free. 
> 
> Which brings to mind an interesting business proposition..... 

Some have attempted to take this route when it comes to free and open source software: to indemnify or provide insurance against copyright problems in the future. The thing that surprises me about the Times article, is that the Wikipedia logo is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation. I know I won't be able to afford its usage on my book, and so I wonder if the Times has licensed it or if there is some journalistic fair use. I don't think there is even a public policy yet, only this draft:
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logo_and_trademark_policy