I'm not sure if we have a policy or not.

Personally, drawn logos like this are unacceptable for commons, and contrary to established practise which is to use them under fair use on the en: Wikipedia.

I am inclined to also count in this category photos of an object bearing a trademarked logo in which the whole intent is to picture the logo. Quite aside from trademark law, such images are likely to count as copyright infringement if the subject is copyrighted, which many/most logos will be. Logos first used in the United States when the law requiring a copyright statement for copyright protection was still in effect may not be protected by copyright law, but I'd say we should simply be safe and avoid all marginal cases.

Aside from those cases, I would personally not bar an image from commons because a trademarked logo or indeed other trademarked aspect appears in it.

Any photo in which a trademarked item appears in it MAY not be usable in all commercial contexts, but I do not think that commons should only consist of images safe to use in commercial advertising.

In an encyclopedia context, or any reference work, such appearance of trademarked items is quite legal, I believe.

-Matt

On 2/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:

We need a policy on trademarked images to be clearly defined, and if there is one, it needs to be publicised somewhere prominant - are trademarked logos which claim to be under a free license really free, or are they violating copyright? Case in point, I've just deleted http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Exquisite-redhat.png and moved it to en: per an offical request from Redhat.

-- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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