On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony writes:
The fundamental intention of [[trademark dilution]] law is to create a property right.
This isn't an accurate statement about trademark law. It's true that trademark law creates certain rights, but to understand trademark law as an attempt to create a *property* right is an analytical mistake.
More important than the legalism...
Trademark law exists in order for organizations (businesses, companies, charities) to avoid having people misrepresent that they are associated with, or are, the organization.
This can be Chevron preventing a fake gas station from opening up on some streetcorner, or the Red Cross keeping people from soliciting money for another charity using their symbols.
In our case - Wikipedia stands for some things (freedom of information, primarily), and doesn't stand for a bunch of other things, some of which we are actively against (restrictions on information and public discussion), and some of which really don't matter one way or the other (like selling coffee).
Trademark law is the method we have available to prevent fraudulent association of Wikipedia with things we aren't involved in or associated with.
I don't want Wikipedia being used to sell Coffee, or shares in Citibank.
I don't mind it being used in association with other free information projects we have some legit connection with.
Sure, any restriction on use of the logo/name is offensive to a "information and ideas are completely free" absolutist philosophy. But if we don't restrict it some, we'll get crap like Wikipedia brand Dog Food, and that sucks.
Out of all the people in the world, Mike Godwin is probably one of the best we could have trying to balance out the larger community of open-information people's interests here.
Picking a fight with Mike over this is essentially arguing that we should let Wikipedia brand Dog Food run free. I disagree...