On 01/04/2008, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
What are their rationales? That US government produced symbols can't be put in images inside of wikipedia even though the image is Public Domain by law?
The "meatball" insignia is not protected by copyright law (ie, it's PD) but it is protected by other, specific, non-copyright federal regulations:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_07/14cfr1221_07.html
Use of the insignia contrary to the regulations is punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000701----000-....
How is reproducing a public domain image going against that law? If they wanted to copyright the image so that people couldn't use it they wouldn't have put it in the public domain right? Wikipedia doesn't put its logo under a free license because it doesn't want people to well... use it? The government can't take those kind of liberties without a reason though, right?
And besides, if you don't want the image because it would promote something that is not the one true source of knowledge (hail WP) then you can just take it out, you can definitely at least do that to Public Domain items.
Peter