From: "Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de
Using trademarks to restrain non-commercial activity is always wrong --
Sorry this is clearly cofused thinking. Trademarks can be used to restrain the misattribution of non-commercial activity. Trademark infringment laws do not restrain commerce, they prevent people from using the marks that identify the product of another. If they remove the trademark there is no restraint. Trademark law only restains the use of trademarks, nothing else. Non commercial groups have just as much right to these things, take the Olympics for example, should everyone be allowed to name a sports competition after the Olympics? Allow that will make people very confused. Ultimately it is about protecting the general public, more so with nonprofits, than protecting proprietary interests..
non-commercial groups are no real threat to us or our brand. If these Russians are actually making money off our brand, that is another matter.
They are posting links to porno web sites. Are they doing that for free? Maybe all the Wikipedia's should do that, we might get more hits that way! (just joking)
But they registered the domain first, we have never registered a trademark, you don't even know if Russia allows unregistered trademarks,
It has nothing to do with trademark law in Russia. It is a domain name registration that is covered by ICANN and WIPO. Let's stop talking about trademarks it is not about that primarily.
so it would be morally wrong and possibly illegal to threaten them for using our name. We can ask them nicely to point the domain to
ru.wikipedia.org.
This is also not true. You don't have to threaten them. Just bring a complaint with WIPO>
But if they don't, that's about it. In any case, Jimbo needs to approve any actions that are taken.
That is true, but one thing to keep in mind if you do nothing then you are encouraging the name of Wikipedia to be associated with click through links to pornographic web sites. Is that what an on line encyclopedia wants? I thought Boomis was keeping pornography and Wikipedia separate.
Alex756