Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 7/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote:
I would be very surprised if the Coca-Cola Company
has ever complained
about the use of its logo in any informative material. They're smart
enough to know that showing the logo is good advertising for them.
We can't permit users to use "no one will complain" as a
justification
in our policy because we can not expect a substantial percentage of
the editing community to be qualified to make such judgements.
We have, in fact, had places where people claimed that "no one would
complain" when later the copyright holder did end up finding the
violation and issuing a complaint.
Even cases that would seem safe to well considered analysis are not
always so sound. A "it's free promotion" argument quickly turns to
dust when our NPOV article fairly covers the latest scandal that the
subject would like hidden under a rug... and their "they won't
complain" quickly turns into prosecution.
We are talking about logos here, and logos are designed to put forth the
company's brand. There can even be an argument that logos are not
copyrightable, but are covered by trademark law instead. In any event
the Coca-Cola logo came on the market before 1923, and would be in the
public domain for the purpose of copyright.
Do you have any case law to support your position on logos.
Ec