[Foundation-l] Wikimedia/Wikipedia trademarks?

[Brian McNeil]

David Gerard wrote:
> On 18/12/2007, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:

>> Most cases are like this, newspapers are often a case where they can use
>>the
>> logo under fair use provisions (as we do on Wikinews for Google &c). Yes,
>>we
>> need to encourage people to ask, yes we need to be generous in granting
>> rights to use, and NO, we don't want to persecute people who in ignorance
>> use the logo unless it is to defame the Foundation.


>Yeah. These are fair use anyway, but they keep asking, so we put a
>blanket permission on the press page of wikimediafoundation.org ;-)

If they keep asking, especially where they could ignore us and claim free
use, then we keep cooperating. It gives us an access into these news
organisations where we have been reasonable with their requests and to
reciprocate they simply have to listen to us. If we're generous about use of
the logos and just ask for a right to reply we're going to catch a lot more
media groups. They may want to run the bad press because it generates the
page views, but if WMF is saying, "let us have our say and you can use the
logo" then they are going to come to us for comment.

If you can understand that not all bad press is bad for the foundation then
you probably understand what I'm trying to get at. From my perspective one
of the last things we want to do is make the press think we are secretive or
likely to hide things from them.


Brian McNeil