Daniel Mayer wrote: Please don't start new threads for discussion by replying to existing emails and changing the subject, as the headers are still preserved which causes the email to appear, in some email clients, as a reply to the previous thread. This is very annoying, as you can imagine. Thanks, Chris

--- Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote: Anybody who works on Wikinews can say that. Yes. This is about a sub group that wish to say they have Wikinews press credentials as a means to gain access to press events. That is *very* different. It is very different. They wish to use these credentials and the Wikinews name to gain access normally only granted to credentialed journalists. Not so. They do not have permission to use the Wikinews trademark in a way that implies they are officially credentialed by Wikinews or Wikimedia. They are not. If you thought I meant that, then I’m sorry I was not clear. All I want is for the board to either place their stamp of approval on what is already going on and help with its administration (such as providing a phone line for people to check the credentials of people who claim to have them), or stop it the whole thing completely. The current system for selecting the people who are considered to have credentials seems to be OK. Administrator access only pertains to what the people who have it do on our projects. Giving people press credentials is *very* different since they will be using the good name of Wikinews and Wikimedia out in the real world. If they misuse those credentials and thus the good name of Wikinews and Wikimedia, then we all get harmed by that. This is an issue of use of trademarks. This list is the best place to talk about that. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

--- Ilya Haykinson <haykinson(a)gmail.com> wrote: Credentials are given by organizations - not by just some people on the Internet (which is all any Wikimedia project is by itself). Using that term - in the real world where it has a specific meaning - to describe that process is very misleading. Using that term and the Wikinews mark implies an official connection that does not exist. That is dishonest and an abuse of the mark. Internal monikers such as 'administrator' are fine and we can be loose in giving them since they are only meant to mean anything in our little world. However, when the purpose of a title is to gain access in the real world, then we must be much more conservative in that use. IMO, the board needs to get involved via an oversight process and they also should give permission for credentialed Wikinewies to use the Wikiness logo and name on press badges (the foundation could even create the badges at cost). The oversight will be almost all hands off - the only real power it would have is the power of immediately removing credentials in egregious cases or shutting down the whole process if it gets out of hand. I doubt either would ever need to be exercised by the board, but I strongly feel they need that ability as a safety mechanism (not unlike Jimbo's power to disband the English ArbCom if it gets out of hand). Everything would still work much the same way as it does now. It would just be official and have oversight. That's all I want. Nor should it ever. But the implication is that Wikinews itself credentialed these people. Wikinews is not an organization in any legal sense and thus can't grant anything. The Wikinews community, however, can be - if the board agrees - to be its agent in the selection of trusted users for accreditation. "Credentials" is a loaded word with a specific meaning outside our context. We can use that, but only if this becomes an official process. I left such a message in July: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_talk:Accreditation_requests At the time I thought it was just some odd experiment that would go nowhere so I forgot about it. I think it is beyond the experiment stage. Now we need to put it through an official beta period to work out whatever else needs to be worked out. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

--- Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: For internal purposes, yes. But when those titles are used to gain access to events the possessor would not otherwise be able to attend in the outside world, then we must be *very* careful. Oversight is needed. Also needed is permission to use the marks and logos in that way. This is needed to protect the foundation and thus everything it supports. It has a very distinct meaning in the news media. It means that an organization is vouching for an individual. This is not a power grab from the community. I in fact want what the community is doing to be officially sanctioned but with necessary oversight. Saying that is a power grab is a baseless accusation and frankly, trolling. Again – monikers up to now, such as administrator, only give people authority to act within our community. Saying somebody is a credentialed journalist is *very* different since that relates to that person’s interactions with the outside world. Everything they do in our name is therefore a reflection on all of us and the foundation. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

Delirium wrote: Okay, I do. The foundation as the owner of the name Wikinews is the ultimate instance to decide who is allowed what to do with this name. It can decide to delegate this decision to the community, even for outside relations as in the case of press credentials but it stays their decision. If the wikinews community wants to hand out press credentials, they should submit their policy to the foundation and have it approved by the foundation. Since the policy seems quite okay, I see no reason why the foundation shouldn't accept it, but there's certainly a need for approval as they want to use the trademark in external relations. greetings, elian

I've made my position clear already - I think the process is fine and that you don't need any more input from the Board. If the rest of the Board decline to comment, I'd take that as silent approval. All members of the Board, if they're at all following what's going on here or in the state of the wiki reports which already explained this, are well aware of the accreditation scheme, and none have objected to it. Angela.

Daniel Mayer wrote: Hoi, It may be not clear to you, but when a process is explicitly seen as a process that is owned by a project and implicitly endorsed by the board, how can it not be permitted to use the logo and badges of that project ? Who else is to determine how the paraphernalia of a project are to be used but the project itself ? Thanks, GerardM

Daniel Mayer wrote: No, it's quite clear that they do. Consider what would be necessary for the opposite to be true: Could the Wikimedia Foundation actually win a trademark-violation lawsuit against Wikinewsies for representing themselves as Wikinewsies using the logo and name of the project they work on? I would submit that it is very unlikely that such a suit would succeed. This ignores the fact that such a suit would never be filed anyway, making the entire trademark issue moot. Trademark law is only as good as your willingness and ability to file and win lawsuits. -Mark

--- SJ <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote: Those policies only relate to what happens within Wikipedia. So I don’t see how that applies to cases where the Wikinews name and logo are used in the real world. That may not be a trademark issue, but it does bear on the reputation of Wikinews and the foundation to the outside world. ‘Press Credentials’ also has a very specific meaning in many countries and legislation of those countries and/or press union rules provide guidelines that organizations need to follow to give out credentials. Nobody here that I’ve seen is advocating changing the already developed Wikinews accreditation policy. All I want are some high level safeguards built in so that the foundation can protect its good name and for the foundation to give its permission for its marks and logos to be used on press badges. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

Would the policy at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_accreditation_policy settle this situation? It requires accreditation policies to be approved by the Board before press badges can say "Wikinews". Angela

Once again, there is no way Wikinews can issue "press pass" today. If wikinews wishes to issue some accreditation or whatever, why not... but As I explain, this should lead the Foundation to become responsible for the content of Wikinews. As a lawyer and a journalist, I have the following points to stress out : First, if these accreditations are denounced as false press pass, the foundation will be liable in many countries for that. The policy might well explain that Wikinews does not supercede national laws or whatever, but national journalist unions will certainly think otherwise and they can pretty much sue the Foundation for that. Second, if there is any wrongdoing made by someone with an accredited pass, the Foundation will now be liable for it. I mean its liability will come first, even before the liability of the author of the article. This is a famous mechanism meant to protect journalists : instead of pursuing them, it is mandatory to sue their editors first. And if we accreditate people, we will be assimilated to editors, becoming liable at first. And this leads to my third and more important point. Accreditating people will transform the Foundation from being a publisher to becoming an editor... which means that we will now be liable for any content written on the website by anyone else. Are you sure that the Foundation is ready to become liable for anything written on Wikinews ? If yes, I think this would be a major change of the Foundation policy. Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal Officer PS : Also, the name wikinews is not yet a registered trademark and it should not be said so until its registration actually ended. Daniel Mayer wrote:

On 11/11/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Errr. How is this different from the Foundation accrediting? In short, you're saying that this (from meta): "This accreditation process is overseen by the Wikinews community, though the **Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation have overall responsibility for the system**. In order to use the term "Wikinews" (a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation) on **press badges**, approval of the process by the Board must be sought. This is done by submitting a summary of the Accreditation policy of the Wikinews edition seeking approval in English to the board(a)wikimedia.org address. The criteria for accreditation will be documented on the relevant editions on Wikinews. **The Board may at any time revoke the accreditation of any Wikinews user, or even revoke approval of the project's accreditation process**." ...does not make the Foundation liable (my **tagging**)? Delphine -- ~notafish

On 11/11/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote: But you don't need permission to use the Wikinews name and logo on press badges. Wikimedia and indeed the reporter emself rarely have any control over what is printed on a press badge in the first place. And your position is that someone needs the permission of the board in order to call themselves a "community approved Wikinews reporter"? That's completely out of touch with reality. Anthony

--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: What? That needs a good deal of explanation. How could somebody legally and/or morally be able to do that? I just can’t use the name and logo of any organization I may volunteer for or give money to on badges meant to gain access. Community created policy will say what will be on the badges. That is a absurd mischaracterization of what I’m advocating. The community controls who can validly say that. What the community does not control is the use of the Wikinews name and logo in a way that may get the foundation in trouble. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

On 11/11/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Wouldn't Wikimedia need permission from those who issue the press badges before it could do that?

--- Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron(a)gmail.com> wrote: I don't understand how a community run process to issue press badges can implicate the foundation as an editor. The *only* part I'd like the foundation to play is to give permission to use the Wikinews mark and logo on the badges. The foundation would play no part in selecting who gets the badges (if needed it could even not be responsible for ever revoking any badge rights if that is deemed necessary to keep the foundation legally safe). Are you saying that the foundation should play no part whatsoever in the badge giving process, for that process to change its name and add all kinds of disclaimers, and/or for the whole thing to be stopped completely? If the foundation is responsible for the acts of its editors in this case, then what about other cases such a liable and slander? -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote: I am familiar with newspapers that have a very clear distinction between the publishers and the editorial board. There are several right where I live right now. In fact, in Salt Lake City there are two major newspapers who have the same distribution agent (read publisher) but very different editorial policies and very seperate editorial boards. To make an even further distinction, the "owners" of the newspapers also try to keep a hands-off approach to editorial decisions, and there is a clear legal seperation between the two entities even for liability purposes. How is Wikinews different than this situation? The problem with Wikinews in this sense is that there are no "leaders" or editors-in-chief who can take the legal arrows, so to say. In this case I think it would be more the administrators who are maintaining and verifying the credentials of Wikinews reporters who would have the legal liability. Not necessarily something pleasant to think about for that matter, and dangerous in a volunteer organization. Certainly something to discourage you from becoming an admin on Wikinews. Having the Wikimedia Foundation take the heat instead would help insulate the admins and others on Wikinews but opens up other issues as you have suggested. The real question then is who has the certifying authority and who has the liability for the problems? The two go together. There is a need for accredited reporters, as there are some news media events that can clearly be covered only by accredited press members. In the USA in particular, the government has no role in the accreditation process and instead it is from the authority of the news agency they are working for. This is the real meat of this issue, and to decide on how the accreditation will happen. BTW, I was turned down from one media event already where I tried to cover the event as a Wikinews reporter but lacked credentials. There will be other opportunities in the future, but this is a real situation. -- Robert Scott Horning

Please... Giving out press credentials has nothing to do with trademark law, copyright or policy. Most countries regulate the right for organization to act as press organizations. For example, the french status of press journalists is regulated by a law of 1935, and its conditions are very strict. First, I don't think that wikinews would like to engage its liability by issuing false press credentials when they don't have the right to do so. Second, I don't think that wikinews would like to enrage journalist unions that control the issuing of these credentials. If you want to issue press credentials there are strict steps to follow, and they have nothing to do with trademark law or whatever : they depend on national press legislations. Press organizations have special privileges related to press, but they also have special obligations to fulfill, and special liabilities ! As of today, Wikinews is not such a press organization and cannot benefit of their privileges ! I can provide more help on this if you are interested. The French law related to this is pretty much a good example of what is needed : http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/texteconsolide/PCEAA.htm and http://mapage.noos.fr/odalage/monde/statut.html for policy-related and historical explanations of the status of journalists. JBS, working in parisian cafés Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote: So an organization cannot, without permission of government-sanctioned bodies, send people to observe and report on events? We're not talking about official government press passes here (the U.S. analog is state-issued passes), simply a piece of paper that indicates the person in question has the sanction of Wikinews to report on their behalf. People are free to ignore that piece of paper of course, and demand something government-issued, but are you saying that the mere act of issuing that piece of paper is illegal, even if it is not represented as an official government-sanctioned press pass? I know in the U.S. at least this is perfect legal, and any attempt to /require/ press credentials be granted through a government agency would be explicitly unconstitutional (violating the First Amendment). A particular event can of course specify that they only accept state-issued press credentials for entry of journalists, or impose even more stringent requirements (White House press briefings require their own approval process), but that's a separate matter---nobody is expecting that Wikinewsies will be allowed in /everywhere/ that other journalists are, at least not in the near future. -Mark

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote: This will most certainly be different in different countries, and we should be careful to use the right names and phrases for the simple goals we want to achieve. What I imagine that Wikinews reporters want is a useful way to answer the question "who are you, and who sent you here?" at the door of a press conference. It need not be the press room of the U.S. president or the U.N. general secretary, perhaps only the mayor of Hoboken, N.J. I can say "I'm Lars Aronsson, only representing myself", but that probably won't open the door for me. It would be a lie to say that "I'm a reporter for Le Monde", so I won't try that either. If I say that "I'm a reporter for the Aronsson Daily", they might never have heard about this newspaper and could want to check with the editors if I'm actually telling the truth. As the legal officer of Wikimedia Foundation, what do you recommend that the Wikinews reporters say at the door, that will help them get in? What kind of document should they show? Suppose that I could at least show a business card with my name, the title "volunteer reporter" and the logotype and address of "Aronsson Daily". I think this could help when I say I'm reporting for them. It wouldn't have any "official" status such as the U.K. "press pass", but it would be obvious that only a limited number of people could legitimately carry business cards with this company's logotype. And no newspaper would send two reporters to the same event that didn't know of each other. Are the proposed "press credentials" of Wikinews anything more than business cards? Obviously they are not a "press pass". What are they really? What are the important differences? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Delirium wrote: Who said anything about a government event? Private organizations also give out press passes for different kinds of events, such as the X-Prize flight that was done completely by private individuals. You can also get press passes to sporting events and sometimes special conferences. One of the nice things that you can get along with your press pass is a press kit as well, that can be invaluable in terms of trying to prepare a story. This will include quotes from people involved and sometimes even digitized photos on a CD-ROM or perhaps a password to a press area on a website, together with reprint premission for your organization. If you are in a sporting event, the press pass (I've had them before for some other work I've done) will get you into areas that the normal public will never be allowed, including locker rooms and sometimes even onto the event field itself. For some of the events you even get a pile of free food from the PR reps who are trying to butter you up to write a positive story about the "event". I've had prime rib on some occasions, or a BBQ buffet that was reserved just for members of the press. Major League Baseball parks even have a seperate kitchen and staff that caters just to members of the press. College Football tends to be a little more laid back and open, but still has a huge table laid out with souviners and trinkets as well. The most important "bonus" is the access to the people running the whole show. Having press credentials when covering a political event will let you get "onto the floor" with almost the same privileges as a delegate when you are at a convention or be able to directly ask questions to a politician. Tech conferences will even have a seperate room where there is one press conference followed by another that goes on for the whole conference/convention. None of this is available to Wikinews reporters if they don't have the formal credentials in the first place. The other aspect is to try and keep the standards for issuing the credentials high enough that the people organizing these events will take a Wikinews press credential seriously. Otherwise all we would be able to do is report what ordinary people see at one of these events (that can still be very interesting). We would be missing a big part of what mainstream reporters get at, even from small-town newspapers or radio stations. -- Robert Scott Horning

--- Traroth <traroth(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: official Sorry, but in any legal sense it is not. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia foundation. Noting more from a legal perspective. The Wikinews community is a collection of people who work on that project but who don’t have any legal membership in it. All authority to use the Wikinews mark outside of that community falls to the registered owner of that mark; the Wikimedia Foundation. If the foundation wants to use the Wikinews community as its agent to select people to be credentialed and thus be able to use the Wikinews mark on badges, then that is fine. But the foundation must make that permission explicit and should put in place reasonable oversight measures that would be used in case anybody abuses the privilege of being credentialed. Again, in almost all cases, the community should be the foundation’s agent in deaccreditation and reaccreditation. But community processes are slow and in really bad cases the foundation should be able to quickly remove credentials of offending users or even suspend the whole process if it ever gets out of hand. All I want to do is protect the foundation and the good name of its projects. It is simply potentially dangerous for people to use the foundation’s name and/or the name of its projects to gain access and authority in the real world they would otherwise not be able to have. For one thing, they need permission to do that, for another, we need to have some type of official oversight on this. -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

Again, in almost all cases, the community If you didn't have any system, then anybody would be able to claim they were writing for Wikinews, as in fact they can anyway. Reporters need to phone organisations up and point to a page which confirms that they are indeed trusted by the community as reporters and not complete unknowns. For a lot of events they will get a separate press badge and for places like Britain they would be well advised to have an union/nationally approved press badge as well as soon as their work reached any level of professionalism, so the badge with the Wikinews logo really isn't that significant. I've seen no evidence that the system could get out of hand, indeed it is very conservatively used and applicants are quite rigorously grilled. If someone did start to offend, the same page could be used to make it clear that their activities did not meet with the approval of the community/board. Freelance reporters have to say they are working for different organisations all the time and it is mainly done on trust. If Wikinews is to get anywhere as a news organisation it needs to be able to have this sort of system and I think it's been very well organised so far. Nobody would imagine that a freelance journalist spoke for CNN's board, so they won't think that a Wikinews reporter is somehow representing the whole Wikimedia board. I think you're worrying overly. Clare (User:Cmwhite)

On 11/8/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote: But you could also say "encyclopedias are written by organizations - not by just some people on the Internet (which is all any Wikimedia project is by itself). Using that term - in the real world where it has a specific meaning - to describe that process is very misleading." I trust the content of Wikipedia because I trust the community behind it. I don't expect the Board to have approved the people editing it, or to have approved the content itself, and yet I'm still happy for it to be called an "encyclopedia", even though that term has meaning in the "real world" which implies a traditional process of peer review and publishing that Wikipedia doesn't have. I don't see the difference between this and Wikinews. "Press credentials" have no more or less meaning than "encyclopedia". If we're challenging the "traditional" model of an encyclopedia by letting a community write it, why would we not do exactly the same for press credentials? Challenge this model of a higher authority and let the people involved work out who can be trusted. It's the only scalable approach, and the only one that will work across all 15 language editions. Angela.

Daniel Mayer wrote: What trademark violation is going on here? Trademark law only prohibits commercial use of a trademark for a competing product in the same market. It is hard to see what the competing product is, since these people /are/ the ones creating Wikinews, and it is also hard to see what the commercial use is. If I were to make up a nametag calling myself "Wikipedia Administrator", using the Wikipedia logo, this would not be a trademark violation, because it is factually correct, noncommercial, and noncompeting. -Mark

On 11/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote: There is federal trademark law and there is federal dilution law. Dilution law requires the mark to be "famous", and doesn't require it to be used in a competing sense. However, I believe it relies on the interstate commerce clause (the copyright clause is unlikely to apply), and according to US Code Section 1125 the dilution must be made "on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods". Even then there is still fair use. So I'm not sure what you mean by "a potential violation", but I can't find any dilution law which regulates non-commercial use. Maybe you could point out some evidence that I just haven't found the law you're talking about. Anthony