[Foundation-l] contents under education/information licenses

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 11/21/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> Note that, in the US, NASA, whose photographs are in the public domain,
> is protected from abusive by specific US laws prohibiting misuse of some
> symbols of the US government, including the NASA logo (the same applies
[snip]
> Note also that the Wikimedia Foundation also copyrights its logos in
> order to prevent abuse. We should not be hypocrites and deny to others
> what we do for the same purpose (especially since the Foundation grants
[snip]


As far as I can tell your argument is seriously lacking in internal consistency.

There are two primary areas where I find your argument completely
unconvincing at first glance:

You make an argument that we should permit logos which are encumbered
by copyright related restrictions, because non-copyright methods are
insufficient to protect the logos in some jurisdictions outside of the
US.   However, you fail to describe the nature of this failure and the
jurisdictions where it is material.  Although the law differs from
place to place, trademark is a powerful and well established concept
in most of the places I suspect matter to you.  Without a specific
argument related to the insufficiency of trademark protection outside
of the United States, I can not measure the importance of your
concerns.


> * This would enable us to counter systemic bias ; that is, allow content
> from some providers from countries where "fair use" does not apply (we
> for instance currently totally unbalance the portrayal of space programs
> by having 7000 photos from NASA and hardly any from ESA/CNES).
[snip]

More importantly, in my mind, is that while you might have an argument
related to the protection of logos and identifying marks for the
purpose of avoiding confusion and false associations,  you then take
the unexplained leap to non-identifying images.. Things like
scientific phenomena, rather than logos.

Images of research are best held in the public domain, they are things
which should be "free", as they are the result of the culmination of
work from generations of people.  It would be fundamentally
inconsistent for us to profess a commitment to Free Knowledge and then
endorse discriminatory restrictions on that knowledge.

"You may use this for educational purposes" is a false offer: for what
use is material that you may learn from, but may only put to use so
long as you can sufficiently hide the origins of your knowledge?


So argue to me that we should allow unfreely copyrighted images of
trademarked logos, and I will agree with you, for I support that
policy on the English Wikipedia (where such logos are used as 'fair
use' consistent with both US code and with established public
practices).   But I can not see how you can paint informative content
with the same broad brush.

If the European Space agency is so paranoid and so afraid to share,
that they will adopt a copyright policy which keeps their work from
the public eye then it is by their own choice.   The historical memory
of man is not always kind to those who wish to shroud their work in
secrecy, and no policy of Wikimedias will change that.