Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
My impression is that using the title of the book (Wikijunior Big Cats) is an acceptable use of trademarks, but perhaps I'm wrong. How this sort of trademark applies to GFDL'd content is untested legally.
The GFDL is rather explicit with this, at least with regard to derivative works. Derivatives are supposed to "Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document)." Verbatim copies would presumably have the same title, but I suppose the GFDL doesn't explicitly state this.
However, [[Wikibooks:Copyrights]] states that "You may use the same title as the Wikibooks book and/or module(s) but trademark law prevents you from advertising the Wikibooks or Wikimedia names without our written permission."
Anthony
Although in this case it is the verbatim copy of a document, not a derivitive document that merely uses some of the content of the previous document. Any changes are merely formatting and are not related to the content of the document.
For some (I guess IANAL) advise you can go to [[Wikipedia: Verbatim copying]] that seems to give the exact opposite advise as to what you are suggesting here. Indeed it says that you *MUST NOT* change the title of the document (i.e.Wikijunior Big Cats). So which bit of advise is correct here?
This would stop you from claiming that you have created a book like "Anthony's Big Cats" when in fact it really is a Wikijunior book that you have changed the title of and republished as if you created it in the first place, even if you have small print somewhere that says otherwise buried near the back page of the book.
I can see all kinds of problems either way in terms of both using trademarks and changing titles of books that you republish. It is precisely in this situation where copyleft law is undefined and why this is a totally new beast from traditional copyright law and how it would be treated if it were a publication from a traditional publisher who doesn't give copyleft permissions. Again, it is an issue of how the WMF wants to treat their trademarks, and how anal they want to get about protecting those trademarks.
This does have a small impact on even page names, and I see a hard-nosed view of protecting trademarks running straight into the GFDL like a brick wall, especially for individual project names as trademarks.