Hello,
After a long and tiring discussion on the Swedish Wikipedia Village Pump ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bybrunnen#Wikimedialoggor_i_artiklar), the logos of the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been deemed "unfree" (since they are copyrighted) and have since been removed from the article namespace, for example in links to the sister project, such as the template linking to Commons: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall:Commons, but also the article about Wikipedia itself has no logo ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).
I have been in contact with Mike Godwin, and got the response that the "unfree" logos can be used, as I had suspected. But a growing number of Swedish Wikipedians felt that the Wikimedia Foundation shouldn't follow any other rules than other organisations whose logos are copyrighted. The argument was that we shouldn't use images that any third-party user cannot use in the same fashion.
The changes were implemented, although there was not a clear consensus to do so. I myself was opposed to this, citing from several emails from Mike Godwin. My viewpoint is that if we cannot even use our own logos in our own articles, something is very wrong. I also argued that we will not gain anything by removing these logos - as this is a non-issue for most ordinary users of Wikipedia.
Anyways, I just wanted to hear if anybody else have had encountered this topic and how the matter was resolved. Is Swedish Wikipedia the first language version to not include the Wikimedia Foundation's logos? Do any of you find this discussion strange? Or are Swedish Wikipedia just ahead of the curve?
Best wishes,
Lennart
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Lennart Guldbrandsson wikihannibal@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
After a long and tiring discussion on the Swedish Wikipedia Village Pump ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bybrunnen#Wikimedialoggor_i_artiklar), the logos of the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been deemed "unfree" (since they are copyrighted) and have since been removed from the article namespace, for example in links to the sister project, such as the template linking to Commons: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall:Commons, but also the article about Wikipedia itself has no logo ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).
I have been in contact with Mike Godwin, and got the response that the "unfree" logos can be used, as I had suspected. But a growing number of Swedish Wikipedians felt that the Wikimedia Foundation shouldn't follow any other rules than other organisations whose logos are copyrighted. The argument was that we shouldn't use images that any third-party user cannot use in the same fashion.
The changes were implemented, although there was not a clear consensus to do so. I myself was opposed to this, citing from several emails from Mike Godwin. My viewpoint is that if we cannot even use our own logos in our own articles, something is very wrong. I also argued that we will not gain anything by removing these logos - as this is a non-issue for most ordinary users of Wikipedia.
Anyways, I just wanted to hear if anybody else have had encountered this topic and how the matter was resolved. Is Swedish Wikipedia the first language version to not include the Wikimedia Foundation's logos? Do any of you find this discussion strange? Or are Swedish Wikipedia just ahead of the curve?
Best wishes,
Lennart
This seems to me to be an extremely strange and unusual interpretation of the Foundation's policy on copyrighted images. I am not aware of anyone else having brought this up on other Wikis.
That policy can be read by extremists to justify any practical policy between "please write down a good reason to use this" and "remove them all using the policy as a pretext". It has been intentionally misinterpreted at both extremes. It was not intended to be used to justify unreasonable behavior. This seems like unreasonable behavior, though I have no ability to read Swedish so I can't comment on the particulars there.
On 29 March 2010 22:42, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This seems to me to be an extremely strange and unusual interpretation of the Foundation's policy on copyrighted images. I am not aware of anyone else having brought this up on other Wikis.
There are occasional attempts to remove Wikimedia images from Commons as nonfree. The general response is "don't be silly."
- d.
The related issues have been discussed on Commons, Enwiki, and Meta, at various times and places in the past.
There is a legitimate concern that the inclusion of non-free logos is bad for reusers. On sites like Commons, which are expected to be exclusively free content, it also creates confusion to have thousands of non-free logos and derivatives.
Personally, I also feel that it sets a bad example for a free content company like WMF not to have any formal policy on the third party use of their logos. Even within Wikimedia there is no agreement about what is allowed and what isn't, except that Mike and others have generally said they don't object to most uses by the community, even while reserving full copyright control and the right to object in the future.
It has been three or four years since I first asked members of the WMF to draft a policy on logo use that would be clear about what is allowed both in the community and for reusers. One option is to release the logos under copyleft, but that has historically been flatly rejected by the WMF on the grounds that copyright is necessary for brand protection. I don't think copyleft is incompatible with brand protection, but even if one assumes it is, that isn't the only option. One could still write a policy that made it clear internally and externally that logos can included and reused alongside Wikimedia content, and when derivatives can be created, without going all the way to copyleft.
Given that we don't have clear policies regarding logo use, I think the Swedish Wikipedia decision is entirely defensible. I don't think it is a good outcome, however. A good outcome would be one that explicitly establishes the allowed uses of the logos and their compatibility with our larger free content mission.
Most of the time when this issue comes up, people just shrug and look the other way, but I don't really think that is a good approach for people that want to be respectful of copyrights. I would also note that the Meta community moved to a public domain logo some time ago in part because of the desire to avoid a copyrighted logo.
-Robert Rohde
Lennart Guldbrandsson wrote:
Anyways, I just wanted to hear if anybody else have had encountered this topic and how the matter was resolved. Is Swedish Wikipedia the first language version to not include the Wikimedia Foundation's logos? Do any of you find this discussion strange? Or are Swedish Wikipedia just ahead of the curve?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=351304445#Wikipedia_logo_use_.3F
MZMcBride
It's crazy. sv.wiki still has "unfree" logo on every page :) It is "unfree" to protect wiki identity.
masti
On 03/29/2010 11:36 PM, Lennart Guldbrandsson wrote:
Hello,
After a long and tiring discussion on the Swedish Wikipedia Village Pump ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bybrunnen#Wikimedialoggor_i_artiklar), the logos of the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been deemed "unfree" (since they are copyrighted) and have since been removed from the article namespace, for example in links to the sister project, such as the template linking to Commons: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall:Commons, but also the article about Wikipedia itself has no logo ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
Marcus Buck wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
KTC
Is the argument about reuse? That downstream reusers of Swedish Wikipedia content can't freely reuse the Wikimedia marks, so they shouldn't be included in content intended to be freely reusable? This is perhaps a silly question, but can the logos not be released under the same license as everything else to facilitate reuse that complies with trademark law?
Nathan
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
... Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
It is not "common sense" to depend on the relationship between the project and the hosting organisation when dealing with free content. downstream users of the content are not Wikimedia projects.
-- John Vandenberg
Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
It is not "common sense" to depend on the relationship between the project and the hosting organisation when dealing with free content. downstream users of the content are not Wikimedia projects.
-- John Vandenberg
Hmm. It could be uploaded under cc-by-sa (3.0) by user:This_logo_is_one_of_the_official_logos_used_by_the_Wikimedia_Foundation with OTRS ticket
Sorry, April Fools' Day is near and this problem is probably a joke in sv wiki :)
przykuta
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:58 AM, Przykuta przykuta@o2.pl wrote:
Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
It is not "common sense" to depend on the relationship between the project and the hosting organisation when dealing with free content. downstream users of the content are not Wikimedia projects.
-- John Vandenberg
Hmm. It could be uploaded under cc-by-sa (3.0) by user:This_logo_is_one_of_the_official_logos_used_by_the_Wikimedia_Foundation with OTRS ticket
They could, but that doesn't make it right. If someone uploads this image under cc-by-sa that would be just as much copyright violation as doing the same with any other image, if that person did not have permission from the Wikimedia Foundation to do so.
Hmm. It could be uploaded under cc-by-sa (3.0) by user:This_logo_is_one_of_the_official_logos_used_by_the_Wikimedia_Foundation with OTRS ticket
They could, but that doesn't make it right. If someone uploads this image under cc-by-sa that would be just as much copyright violation as doing the same with any other image, if that person did not have permission from the Wikimedia Foundation to do so.
"with OTRS ticket" I mind permission from the Wikimedia Foundation. But - April Fools' Day is tomorrow... ;) and it is not the best joke; "we don't want copyright Wikimedia logos". Huh - an alternative logo for articles? Wikipedia Mascot for copyright puritnas? We use collage of Wikipedia logo on the Wikimedia Polska Conference: http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Konferencja_Wikimedia_Polska_2010 but for talking about free culture ... You know :)
przykuta
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Marcus Buck wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
KTC
If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )".
I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly. We can't stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an encyclopedia. If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you.
George Herbert wrote:
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
Marcus Buck wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
KTC
If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )".
I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly. We can't stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an encyclopedia. If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you.
It's amazing that Swedish Wikipedia is fighting tooth and nail to get rid of the Wikipedia logo, while the English Wikipedia is having the same battle over keeping the Goatse.cx image (which is receiving 800 hits a day from people receiving shock image links).
Cary Bass wrote:
It's amazing that Swedish Wikipedia is fighting tooth and nail to get rid of the Wikipedia logo, while the English Wikipedia is having the same battle over keeping the Goatse.cx image (which is receiving 800 hits a day from people receiving shock image links).
Links are nice.[1]
MZMcBride
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 9:06 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Cary Bass wrote:
It's amazing that Swedish Wikipedia is fighting tooth and nail to get rid of the Wikipedia logo, while the English Wikipedia is having the same battle over keeping the Goatse.cx image (which is receiving 800 hits a day from people receiving shock image links).
Links are nice.[1]
MZMcBride
And if people cared about it they would of been able to go and find it without needing links.
George Herbert wrote:
If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )".
Read this thread before making such claims. The English Wikipedia did have this conversation and the outcome was nothing similar to what you've said.
I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly. We can't stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an encyclopedia. If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you.
Huh? There is a large subset of users on some Wikimedia wikis who do nothing more than "play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights." To say it's incompatible with participation is ludicrous.
MZMcBride
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:03 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )".
Read this thread before making such claims. The English Wikipedia did have this conversation and the outcome was nothing similar to what you've said.
I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly. We can't stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an encyclopedia. If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you.
Huh? There is a large subset of users on some Wikimedia wikis who do nothing more than "play legal games or fight intellectual property law reform fights." To say it's incompatible with participation is ludicrous.
MZMcBride
I am aware of that. It's not necessary to tolerate it, as it's completely unrelated to our mission to build an encyclopedia, and often gets in the way of doing so.
We have a tendency to let open content people go to town, as the project and foundation widely benefit from open content and we'd all like to encourage it. But that's not an open license for them to damage the encyclopedia.
It's happened in the past. The last couple of instances on en.wp that I can recall got blocks. I don't think that was the wrong outcome, though your opinion may vary.
No, this is a profoundly stupid decision that has no logical sense. A "free" license is a copyright license.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
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On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:36 AM, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
No, this is a profoundly stupid decision that has no logical sense. A "free" license is a copyright license.
So? What does that have to do with the post you are quoting, or anything else in this thread?
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org wrote:
The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
Just allow me to ask for a clarification.
We're talking about article space, right?
This means that Wikimedia logos are now _not used_ in the Swedish Wikipedia to illustrate articles on the Wikimedia projects, I suppose. Right?
But as I understood Lennart's first email, I think that sv Wikipedia also has decided not to use the logos even on internal navigation templates and such to link/identify other Wikimedia projects, right?
What about the top left corner of every page, has it also been decided that the Wikipedia logo used to identify the website should go too?
Thanks for your clarification on this.
Cheers,
Delphine
2010/3/30 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... This means that Wikimedia logos are now _not used_ in the Swedish Wikipedia to illustrate articles on the Wikimedia projects, I suppose. Right?
But as I understood Lennart's first email, I think that sv Wikipedia also has decided not to use the logos even on internal navigation templates and such to link/identify other Wikimedia projects, right?
That is correct. e.g. http://sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=11402949&oldid=11192788
What about the top left corner of every page, has it also been decided that the Wikipedia logo used to identify the website should go too?
That is the website UI, which is not content. They could say that the UI should also be completely "free" of copyrighted works. IMO that would be going overboard.
-- John Vandenberg
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:25 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
2010/3/30 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
... This means that Wikimedia logos are now _not used_ in the Swedish Wikipedia to illustrate articles on the Wikimedia projects, I suppose. Right?
But as I understood Lennart's first email, I think that sv Wikipedia also has decided not to use the logos even on internal navigation templates and such to link/identify other Wikimedia projects, right?
That is correct. e.g. http://sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=11402949&oldid=11192788
What about the top left corner of every page, has it also been decided that the Wikipedia logo used to identify the website should go too?
That is the website UI, which is not content. They could say that the UI should also be completely "free" of copyrighted works. IMO that would be going overboard.
If that is the case, while I understand and actually respect the decision not to use Wikimedia logos _to illustrate articles_ (although I don't agree with it), I find it extremely inconsequent and illogical to take away the logos that are in navigation templates and pointing to other material in other Wikimedia projects.
As far as I'm concerned, these are part of the UI as much as the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner, and, more important, I find this decision actually harms our mission of "distributing" free content. If Wikimedia projects don't help themselves, I wonder who will.
Delphine
2010/3/30 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
That is the website UI, which is not content. They could say that the UI should also be completely "free" of copyrighted works. IMO that would be going overboard.
If that is the case, while I understand and actually respect the decision not to use Wikimedia logos _to illustrate articles_ (although I don't agree with it), I find it extremely inconsequent and illogical to take away the logos that are in navigation templates and pointing to other material in other Wikimedia projects.
As far as I'm concerned, these are part of the UI as much as the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner, and, more important, I find this decision actually harms our mission of "distributing" free content. If Wikimedia projects don't help themselves, I wonder who will.
Anything that is rendered as page content will appear in the export dumps and needs to be considered by reusers, which includes those navigational templates. The logo at the upper left is different in that regard since it isn't part of the dumps.
-Robert Rohde
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
2010/3/30 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
That is the website UI, which is not content. They could say that the UI should also be completely "free" of copyrighted works. IMO that would be going overboard.
If that is the case, while I understand and actually respect the decision not to use Wikimedia logos _to illustrate articles_ (although I don't agree with it), I find it extremely inconsequent and illogical to take away the logos that are in navigation templates and pointing to other material in other Wikimedia projects.
As far as I'm concerned, these are part of the UI as much as the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner, and, more important, I find this decision actually harms our mission of "distributing" free content. If Wikimedia projects don't help themselves, I wonder who will.
Anything that is rendered as page content will appear in the export dumps and needs to be considered by reusers, which includes those navigational templates. The logo at the upper left is different in that regard since it isn't part of the dumps.
-Robert Rohde
Keep in mind that navigational templates - which land at Wikipedia projects - count as the explicitly licensed "links to our site" usage of all our templates. Mike conveniently made that all OK for anyone to do without additional permission requests or complications anyways.
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