On 3/2/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 3/1/06, Ben Yates bluephonic@gmail.com wrote:
Poking my head in:
I don't have an particular argument, but this whole discussion feels very wrong. Wikipedia should not be acting like a corporation -- it is not trying to make a profit; its mission is to spread knowledge. Period.
The Wikimedia Foundation *is* a corporation, and it should act like one. That said, I'd describe the problem here is more a lack of Wikimedia acting like a corporation.
A corporate response to this would be simple, they'd refer the situation to their licensing department - not argue about it on a public mailing list.
We did not *argue* about it. We *explain* the issue (in particular since that might help some of you explain yourself the issue in the next cases :-)).
I'd certainly describe the exchange between Daniel Mayer and Robert Bamler to be arguing. But maybe I just misread things.
We also referred the situation to the licensing department in *gently* asking Robert to send an email to the board. Generally we assume good faith from anyone using the logo and the mark, and generally, assuming good faith is what is bringing in the best and more courtous feedback, and allow development of harmonious relationships in the future.
*You* gently asked Robert to send an email to the board. You weren't one of the ones I was talking about. In fact, given the apparent lack of preplanning over situations like this I think your response was about as good of one that there could be.
Another solution would be to send a legal notice by a lawyer for any infringment to anyone using the logo with no permission. But frankly, do we really want to do that ?
I don't know what you want to do. What I think would make the most sense would be to point to a policy page where it explains that anyone can get a free license for certain non-profit purposes such as this one. But that's just what I'd do in your situation. What I was talking about was that the policy be made clear, not that it be one way or another.
A corporation would have a written trademark
licensing policy which any volunteers who want to poke their heads into things could refer to (the referral Ant gave to board@wikimedia.org serves nearly the same purpose, though).
Hmmmm. Correct. This said, I would suggest that the *written* trademark license policy would be best not widely public. In particular when a financial agreement is concerned :-)
First of all, by written, I include something written on a computer and distributed over the internet. Secondly, I was only referring to the policy, not necessarily the legal agreement itself. Of course, having the standard agreement available for everyone to see wouldn't be a horrible thing. There's no reason, in my opinion, that Wikipedia's standard trademark license shouldn't be as accessible as their standard copyright license.
Agreements also need to take into account the situation (is that an agreement for chapter use ? Or for commercial use ? Or for educational use ?). But, generally I agree, we need clearer guidelines on the matter and Soufron and others are working on this.
There's no need for the policy to cover all situations, of course. But it would be nice to have an idea of what kinds of licenses one can get. I understand you're probably trying to get some price discrimination among the commercial reusers, but your guidelines could always be silent on those issues where you intend to charge. (Of course, that's kind of a shitty thing to do. Some sort of standard license for commercial redistribution should probably be offered. Those big shots who can manage to negotiate better deals could still do so.)
The board address is also a good way to track permission and agreements as all emails are stored in OTRS ;)
Sure, and as I said, referring to the board address was nearly as good. In fact, I don't really have a problem with your response to the situation.
I think it's important that an organization have explicit channels for dealing with things such as licensing, and that volunteers within the organization don't step outside of those channels and act authoritative on those matters. Further, it should be crystal clear to the public who is authoritative on what matters and who isn't. It took 15 posts before someone finally said, "contact X to get authorization". And it's still up in the air whether or not that authorization is going to be given, because there's no public written policy on the matter.