[Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

[Anthere]

ATR wrote:
>  
> |> > I don't think the foundation owns the mediawiki logo. Copyright wise
> |> > it is in the public domain.
> |> Hoi,
> |> Given the age of the thing it cannot be PD yet. They are part of a
> |> trademark and as such they are owned by the Foundation. They can if they
> |> so choose license the logos. This is problematic because the rights that
> |> are usual for other WMF content contrasts with the requirement of
> |> maintaining the trademark.
> |
> |No, the MediaWiki one really is public domain.
> |http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png
> |
> |Whether or not it is also a trademark of the Foundation doesn't affect
> |its copyright status.
> |
> |Angela.
> 
> Someone cannot declare a work PD just by copying it. It seems the 
> actual logo was created by Eric Moller, and it has always been the 
> understanding with all logos that they were "works made for hire" for
> the foundation. This has been discussed previously and Jimbo can
> back this up. Just because someone put a PD tag on the page at 
> Commons does not invalidate the Foundation's claim to this logo.
> 
> As far as the "trademark" status of the logo, the word MEDIAWIKI is
> a registered mark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. I know this because
> I am the attorney of record on the USPTO file that granted this mark to
> the foundation. Also the actual logo is also a mark of the Wikimedia 
> Foundation Inc., and is used to identify the MediaWiki software which 
> is released by the Foundation and is a foundation project.
> 
> Of course all trademarks can also be used based upon principles of
> fair use that apply to trademarks in a similiar way as copyrights. The
> important issue is that the mark is not used in a way to confuse the
> public or dilute the brand which the mark represents as this is the kind
> of protection that the law affords mark holders.
> 
> Alex T Roshuk
> Attorney at law


Can I put my feet in the mud here ?

The logo was a creation of Erik. The flower is from me (see here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol%28L%29.jpg)

After the end of the contest, Erik decided to use that logo for 
mediawiki. At this time, it was not clear at all the logos would be 
trademarked by the Foundation. The truth is we had no idea at that time 
how important trademarks would be in the future. Well, the Foundation 
was created only a couple of months before the international contest for 
logos. There was no set up board. There were no board decision. There 
were no resolution. In short, there is absolutely no trackable way to 
prove there was an understanding the Foundation would own the trademark. 
This is just bullshit. There was no clear understanding. We were young, 
we did not know. Period.

My memory is also very clear that developers did not want the mediawiki 
logo and name to be owned by the Foundation. Of course, in real life, 
anyone can claim to own a trademark on something that nobody else claim. 
So, the Foundation asked to own the trademark of this, and now does. And 
with most developers now making a living thanks to the Foundation, I 
doubt very much any of them would ever make a complain over this. There 
is now a history.

Several months after the logo started being used for mediawiki, Erik 
asked me if I would put the flower image under public domain. Again, I 
did not know much about copyright and author rights at that time. At 
this point, the image was under GFDL, which made no sense for a logo, 
and no sense for what we wanted it to be used for. It may be that 
another licence would have been better.

The mediawiki software is very arguably a Foundation project as you 
claim. For a long time, it was not. And the developers did not want it 
to be. It seems the Foundation just decided at some point that it was. 
Apparently.
The problem I have with this statement, is that I far as I know, I have 
been on the board of trustees since june 2004, and I have NO memory we 
ever decided that mediawiki was a wikimedia project. For all I know, it 
is not. And for now, the Foundation website does not claim it is : 
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects.

It is definitly a software we are using. Developers are largely 
improving it for our projects. But others are improving it as well. The 
main *ownership* of mediawiki is related to the main developers being 
now paid by the Foundation. It may be a wikimedia project in this that 
we largely support its development. But it is not officially a wikimedia 
project. Period.

Now, understand it well. I *prefer* that the Foundation owns the logo 
and name trademarks, because as you say, it means the logo and name can 
not be misused to confuse public.

However, contrariwise to Wikipedia, the mediawiki software is not only 
used by the Foundation, but by also thousands of projects around the 
world. The worse thing that could happen is that people deciding to use 
the mediawiki find themselves obliged to ask permission or even worse to 
pay the Foundation to use the software, use the name, use the little 
logo, powered by Mediawiki. If something like this ever occurs in the 
future, I hope developers will consider changing the name, changing the 
logo and make it possible for the software to spread freely. This is 
what is important, and as long as the Foundation respects this spirit, 
and only defend the logo and name against bad uses, I am fine with the 
current situation.

In the end, I am only pissed of to see claims about what the Foundation 
owns, said, agreed to, blahblahblah, provided with the stamp "Jimbo can 
back this up". The Foundation is governed by a board. And as Angela will 
probably agree to, there are some decisions which were never made by the 
board. Which makes their validity questionnable.

Ant