Fastfission wrote:
Arf arf! No, no that kind of seal...
There are a number of U.S. federal agencies which have seals the usages of which are restricted by federal law. For example, about the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA):
Use of the Central Intelligence Agency Seal Federal law prohibits use of the words Central Intelligence Agency, the initials CIA, the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the Central Intelligence Agency. http://www.cia.gov/cia/notices.html#seal
Now I don't know what it's *copyright* status is -- is it a work of the federal government and thus in the public domain, or is it considered an exception? -- but it seems clear to me, anyway, that it is not "free" in the sense required to be listed on Wikipedia Commons. In the United States its usage is restricted fairly heavily, including the "non-commercial" bugaboo. It looks to me like, in effect, this would be a "copyrighted with permission but no commercial use" tag. Which, as I understand it, is verboten.
Any ideas? I tend to think that any image with this sort of legal restriction does NOT qualify as "free" in the sense required by Commons and is antithetical to its purpose -- to provide a repository of "free" images.
I generally concur that their prohibition in more in the nature of a trademark restriction than a copyright restriction. It all depends on how you interpret the word "use"
We may very well be more centrally intelligent, but it could be a problem if we started calling ourselves the Centrally Intelligent Association.
Ec