Hallo,
Commons:Licensing currently says that "trademarked logos" should not be uploaded to Commons. I'd like to propose to change that.
Short version: Trademarks are very different from copyright. They are more like "other laws which restrict the free use" of (any) content and Commons does already allow seals, flags, coats of arms, Olympic symbols, the Red Cross and Crescent (all of which are protected quite like "commercial" trademarks) as well as Nazi symbols (the use of which is extremly restricted in some legislations such as DE, AT, HU).
Long version: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Trademarks
Claus
I agree.
13 Sep 2005 02:43:00 +0200, Claus Färber <claus@xn--frber-gra.muc.dehttp://frber-gra.muc.de
:
Hallo,
Commons:Licensing currently says that "trademarked logos" should not be uploaded to Commons. I'd like to propose to change that.
Short version: Trademarks are very different from copyright. They are more like "other laws which restrict the free use" of (any) content and Commons does already allow seals, flags, coats of arms, Olympic symbols, the Red Cross and Crescent (all of which are protected quite like "commercial" trademarks) as well as Nazi symbols (the use of which is extremly restricted in some legislations such as DE, AT, HU).
Long version: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Trademarks
Claus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse. Commercial logos are frequently under _both_ trademark _and_ copyright.
Felipe Micaroni Lalli wrote:
Short version: Trademarks are very different from copyright. They are more like "other laws which restrict the free use" of (any) content and Commons does already allow seals, flags, coats of arms, Olympic symbols, the Red Cross and Crescent (all of which are protected quite like "commercial" trademarks) as well as Nazi symbols (the use of which is extremly restricted in some legislations such as DE, AT, HU).
I would recommend removing all of those.
Remove all flags? That would be a pain in the arse, to put it mildly...
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse. Commercial logos are frequently under _both_ trademark _and_ copyright.
Felipe Micaroni Lalli wrote:
Short version: Trademarks are very different from copyright. They are more like "other laws which restrict the free use" of (any) content and Commons does already allow seals, flags, coats of arms, Olympic symbols, the Red Cross and Crescent (all of which are protected quite like "commercial" trademarks) as well as Nazi symbols (the use of which is extremly restricted in some legislations such as DE, AT, HU).I would recommend removing all of those.
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Actually, that's incorrect. Lots of previous discussions have used arguments similar to the following: Suppose, for example, that Saudi Arabia bans photographs of nude people. "Maximal reuse" would require us to then delete the contents of [[Category:Nudity]]. The decision has been to simply *ignore* that kind of issue, because the alternative would mean our content is held hostage to every individual country's idea of morality.
Personally, I believe we can keep trademark images that are under a free license, for example [[Image:Gnomelogo.png]], though I suspect there are not many examples of such images anyway.
The system is free but the Gnome logo isn't under free license. Try create a System with this logo. You can't. Like the Wikimedia logo.
hugs, Felipe.
2005/9/13, David Benbennick dbenbenn@gmail.com:
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Actually, that's incorrect. Lots of previous discussions have used arguments similar to the following: Suppose, for example, that Saudi Arabia bans photographs of nude people. "Maximal reuse" would require us to then delete the contents of [[Category:Nudity]]. The decision has been to simply *ignore* that kind of issue, because the alternative would mean our content is held hostage to every individual country's idea of morality.
Personally, I believe we can keep trademark images that are under a free license, for example [[Image:Gnomelogo.png]], though I suspect there are not many examples of such images anyway. _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Felipe Micaroni Lalli micaroni@gmail.com schrieb/wrote:
The system is free but the Gnome logo isn't under free license. Try create a System with this logo. You can't.
That's trademark law, not copyright. Even if you draw a "confusingly similar" image, which is not considered a derivate by copyright law and of which you hold full copyright, you still can't use it to create your own system. You can't even use the character sequence "G"-"N"-"O"-"M"-"E", although it is inelegible for copyright.
On the other hand, tradmark law allows you to do whatever you want with that logo unless you claim to be GNOME Foundation (or your products theirs or endorsed by them).
Like the Wikimedia logo.
The Wikimedia logos are actually both trademarked AND copyrighted by Wikimedia Foundation.
Claus
You know. :) Sorry.
14 Sep 2005 02:19:00 +0200, Claus Färber <claus@xn--frber-gra.muc.dehttp://frber-gra.muc.de
:
Felipe Micaroni Lalli micaroni@gmail.com schrieb/wrote:
The system is free but the Gnome logo isn't under free license. Try
create a
System with this logo. You can't.
That's trademark law, not copyright. Even if you draw a "confusingly similar" image, which is not considered a derivate by copyright law and of which you hold full copyright, you still can't use it to create your own system. You can't even use the character sequence "G"-"N"-"O"-"M"-"E", although it is inelegible for copyright.
On the other hand, tradmark law allows you to do whatever you want with that logo unless you claim to be GNOME Foundation (or your products theirs or endorsed by them).
Like the Wikimedia logo.
The Wikimedia logos are actually both trademarked AND copyrighted by Wikimedia Foundation.
Claus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
On 9/13/05, David Benbennick dbenbenn@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, that's incorrect.
As another example, the Commons has consistently decided to keep the various Wikimedia Foundation logos, which are "all rights reserved" and hence not reusable at all outside of Wikimedia. (I've always voted to delete them for that reason, but I'm in a small minority.)
David Benbennick wrote:
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
On 9/13/05, David Benbennick dbenbenn@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, that's incorrect.
As another example, the Commons has consistently decided to keep the various Wikimedia Foundation logos, which are "all rights reserved" and hence not reusable at all outside of Wikimedia. (I've always voted to delete them for that reason, but I'm in a small minority.)
I would also vote to delete them.
_Obviously_ we have permission to use _our own_ logos. But our usual NPOV approach tends to require us not to give ourselves special treatment. :-)
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales:
I would also vote to delete them.
_Obviously_ we have permission to use _our own_ logos. But our usual NPOV approach tends to require us not to give ourselves special treatment. :-)
A solution to this issue might be to enable selective inline linking, so that an image can be used by providing just a URL, such as:
This is disabled on many (all?) projects (vandalism, external traffic), but it would be possible to restrict it to our own domain, and to put non-free content in a restricted space. This could also include the Creative Commons license logos, which are equally non-free, but used on all our projects for the license templates.
Erik
David Benbennick wrote:
On 9/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Actually, that's incorrect. Lots of previous discussions have used arguments similar to the following: Suppose, for example, that Saudi Arabia bans photographs of nude people. "Maximal reuse" would require us to then delete the contents of [[Category:Nudity]].
Your point is valid. I overstated the case.
The core goal of Commons is to maximize reuse free of copyright, trademark, and patent issues across a broad spectrum of nations, while at the same time acknowledging that some very idiosyncratic jurisdictions may be too difficult to accomodate.
This formulation is accurate, I think, but of course it leaves open a fairly large gray area where community consensus is going to be our best guide.
--Jimbo
One cannot take photographs of many real-world objects or scenes without encountering trademarks. Cars bear trademarks (their manufacturer's emblems, names, sometimes even shapes or paint designs). Streets are covered with trademarks. And so on and so forth.
I hope that such are not included in any restrictions.
-Matt
Matt Brown morven@gmail.com schrieb/wrote:
One cannot take photographs of many real-world objects or scenes without encountering trademarks. Cars bear trademarks (their manufacturer's emblems, names, sometimes even shapes or paint designs). Streets are covered with trademarks. And so on and so forth.
I think that's a different problem: The question here is whether we care about the unfreeness of minor elements if they appear on a free photo. You still can copy, distribute and modify the photo unless you take such element and distribute it without the rest of the photo.
This is not about trademarks only. It's nearly impossible to take a photo that does not show something that is copyrighted or protected as a registered design (US: design patent), eiher.
In effect, that's similar to quotes: You can have them in GFDL'd content (although the GFDL fails to mention that explicitly) but that does not mean you can take the quote and distribute it under the GFDL without the rest of the document.
Claus
Matt Brown wrote:
One cannot take photographs of many real-world objects or scenes without encountering trademarks. Cars bear trademarks (their manufacturer's emblems, names, sometimes even shapes or paint designs). Streets are covered with trademarks. And so on and so forth.
I hope that such are not included in any restrictions.
This is where reasoned community consensus can resolve the issue nicely. Incidental use of a trademark is not typically a problem, as compared with actual simple reproduction of the trademark.
To make a simple example:
A CocaCola logo in and of itself is not appropriate for commons.
A photo of a CocaCola bottling plant, which contains the logo as part of a sign, is appropriate for commons.
Borderline cases can be discussed and debated with a view towards balancing competing interests.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com schrieb/wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Maximal reuse might result in minial content.
I think every restriction should be evaluated to determine whether the image is still "free enough".
With copyright, that's quite easy: Copyright restricts nearly every act of redistribution, so it makes sense to require that images and other media need to have a "free license".[1]
On the other hand, trademarks only restricts labelling products with the image or impersonating the owner, i.e. "trademarkish" use. IMO(!), that's still "free enough".
Further, there's a conflict if you include "trademarkish" use within the maximal reuse goal of Wikimedia: If someone really starts to use an image on Commons as a trademark, it's likely to become protected as a trademark (and incompatible with the maximal reuse goal).
Finally, there are some practical problems with a strict no-trademark policy. As everything can be trademarked, you would have to do regular trademark searches with every trademark registry. You can't ask the author/source of an image (especially if it's PD or depicts something found in nature) and there are very few things that can't be trademarked (and virtually none the upload of which to Commons makes sense).
Commercial logos are frequently under _both_ trademark _and_ copyright.
If it's also copyrighted (and not under a free license), the situation is clear: Wikimedia Commons can't host it.
------------------------------- [1] You can argue what constitudes a "free" license. Some people consider no modification licenses free enough, some consider copyleft/share-alike/GNU licenses too restrictive.
Claus
Claus Färber wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com schrieb/wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Maximal reuse might result in minial content.
I think every restriction should be evaluated to determine whether the image is still "free enough".
With copyright, that's quite easy: Copyright restricts nearly every act of redistribution, so it makes sense to require that images and other media need to have a "free license".[1]
On the other hand, trademarks only restricts labelling products with the image or impersonating the owner, i.e. "trademarkish" use. IMO(!), that's still "free enough".
Further, there's a conflict if you include "trademarkish" use within the maximal reuse goal of Wikimedia: If someone really starts to use an image on Commons as a trademark, it's likely to become protected as a trademark (and incompatible with the maximal reuse goal).
Finally, there are some practical problems with a strict no-trademark policy. As everything can be trademarked, you would have to do regular trademark searches with every trademark registry. You can't ask the author/source of an image (especially if it's PD or depicts something found in nature) and there are very few things that can't be trademarked (and virtually none the upload of which to Commons makes sense).
Agreed. This makes perfect sense to me.
I agree.
14 Sep 2005 22:26:00 +0200, Claus Färber <claus@xn--frber-gra.muc.dehttp://frber-gra.muc.de
:
Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com schrieb/wrote:
The core goal of Commons is maximal reuse.
Maximal reuse might result in minial content.
I think every restriction should be evaluated to determine whether the image is still "free enough".
With copyright, that's quite easy: Copyright restricts nearly every act of redistribution, so it makes sense to require that images and other media need to have a "free license".[1]
On the other hand, trademarks only restricts labelling products with the image or impersonating the owner, i.e. "trademarkish" use. IMO(!), that's still "free enough".
Further, there's a conflict if you include "trademarkish" use within the maximal reuse goal of Wikimedia: If someone really starts to use an image on Commons as a trademark, it's likely to become protected as a trademark (and incompatible with the maximal reuse goal).
Finally, there are some practical problems with a strict no-trademark policy. As everything can be trademarked, you would have to do regular trademark searches with every trademark registry. You can't ask the author/source of an image (especially if it's PD or depicts something found in nature) and there are very few things that can't be trademarked (and virtually none the upload of which to Commons makes sense).
Commercial logos are frequently under _both_ trademark _and_ copyright.
If it's also copyrighted (and not under a free license), the situation is clear: Wikimedia Commons can't host it.
[1] You can argue what constitudes a "free" license. Some people consider no modification licenses free enough, some consider copyleft/share-alike/GNU licenses too restrictive.
Claus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l