On 11/16/06, ATR alex756@nyc.rr.com wrote:
Putting together those two elements creates a logo, and a logo is covered by statutory & common trademark law. The basis principle of trademark law is that the trademark belongs to whomever uses it, here it has been in use by the Wikimedia Foundation, it was created on its servers and it belongs to it, anyone, even board members of the WMF cannot suggest that it belongs to them or can be transfered to some kind of "public ownership" because they are not using it "in commerce" and never did. Correct me if I am wrong. Otherwise it is Wikimedia Foundation that "owns" the logo, and all the underlying intellectual property rights to said logo, whatever such rights may be notwithstanding whatever anyone says or whatever they might have did, i..e., declaring such logo as being "public domain."
The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't "own" the logo. They might own a trademark on the logo. They don't own the copyright on the original logo, because they didn't create it, not even as a work for hire (the author was not an employee at the time they created the image, and the author did not "expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire").
Whether or not the WMF owns the trademark is actually a more difficult question. A trademark doesn't actually belong "to whomever uses it", in order to obtain a trademark it has to be used with some degree of exclusivity.
Are others using the Mediawiki logo in commerce? I would think there probably are. Is this use significant enough? I have no idea.
Anthony