[Commons-l] (Free) culture clash: Virgin ad campaign and Flickr photos

[Matthew Brown]

On 7/25/07, Fruggo <fruggo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been wondering about that. AFAIK CC-licenses aren't about trade mark
> law. So, anyone else won't be able to use te logo even if it is part of a
> CC'd work, since it will be protected as a trade mark. Isn't it the same
> discussion as about the moral rights and personality rights? A free
> copyright-license doesn't mean you wave moral or personality rights (so,
> Virgin can't use the picture they used just by claiming it's CC), nor does
> it wave trade mark rights (so, we can't use Virgin's logo even if it would
> be part of a CC'd work).

Trademark law doesn't protect your mark in all places, only those in
which there could be confusion.  Thus, trademark owners like to
consider the trademarked logo copyrighted as well, if possible (due to
age, or national law on minimum requirements for copyrightability -
many logos cannot be copyrighted in Germany, for instance).

-Matt