[Foundation-l] A local chapter without Wikimedians

[Jimmy Wales]

Having just visited there, I can say with some confidence that 
discussion of people refusing to cease using the trademarks is wildly 
off base.  The people at WMF-Brasil are not bad guys.  I just spent 3 
days there.  If there is a problem, I see no obstacles to working it 
out.

I will be seeing thomas (the main organizer of my trip) the day after 
thanksgiving in florida.


On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:46, Michael Bimmler wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 4:40 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>>  2008/11/24 Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>:
>>
>>>  Whether something can be done from afar or not... Beria, Luiz and 
>>> Porantim
>>>  are entitled to have the discussion focus at least initially on the 
>>> specific
>>>  problem they point out. I suspect that there is very little that can 
>>> be done
>>>  - the Foundation, and ChapCom, have almost no control over the 
>>> operations of
>>>  any chapter. Even withdrawing permission to use the Wikimedia-related
>>>  intellectual property (without prejudging the need for that in this 
>>> case, of
>>>  course) would need to be backed up in court in Brasil if a chapter 
>>> refused
>>>  to comply.
>>
>>
>>  I understand that chapter agreements (certainly the WMUKv1 one)
>>  usually include provision where either side can withdraw from the
>>  trademark agreement with a few months' notice. Though of course if an
>>  organisation wasn't happy with that provision being invoked they may
>>  well be able to argue the point in court.
>>
>
> Yeah and, what Nathan probably meant: If a chapter ignores a
> termination message and keeps using the trademark, we would need to
> obtain an injunction in *their* country. Now, I think the Wikipedia
> trademark is not even registered internationally yet (it isn't in
> Switzerland, so I suppose it isn't in that many other countries
> either), so we'd run into problems. As a matter of fact, the chapter
> could just register the trademark in the country and unless the
> foundation was willing to really put up a court fight to get the
> trademark back, they could just ignore the termination notice.
>
> Contracts are nice, but you also need be able to enforce them.
>
> Michael
>
>
> --
> Michael Bimmler
> mbimmler at gmail.com
>
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