[Foundation-l] The EFF appears to be somewhat upset by the foundation

[Mike Godwin]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> The initial letter from Isenberg (isn't that where Saruman lived?) is
> almost entirely about trademarks, so you can understand why people
> would think that was your concern.


Sure, that makes sense. But the Board's resolution had to do with
implementing a trademark policy balancing the requirements of trademark law
with the needs of the community and the chapters. So in that respect, at
least, the Board's resolution did not touch on any matters of the sort that
arose out of our interactions with Wikipedia Art.

That is where my response would have differed from yours. I would have
> started by asking for a disclaimer, rather than asking them to hand
> over the domain. The disclaimer is a good solution, you seem to agree
> with that, and requesting the domain name comes across (however
> carefully you word your request) as an attempt to shut them down so it
> would have been good to completely avoid that potential for
> misinterpretation.


If they had transferred the domain name over to us, we'd have paid all their
expenses and forwarded requests for some period of time to any new domain
name they chose to register. There are other alternatives we might have
considered as well. But, take my word for it, we had no interest at all in
shutting down their site (which, so far as I can tell, is a very low-traffic
site in any case).

At any rate, disagreements resolved through negotiations typically lead to
compromises, and so it makes sense sometimes to make your strongest
arguments first, so that you can fall back into a reasonable compromise.

Personally, I find WR even more frustrating that foundation-l, so I
> avoid it, but I fully agree with everyone that it is legally and
> morally acceptable to use the Wikipedia trademark in such a way.
>

I'm a bit perverse, but I enjoy the performance art of WR rather more than
that of Wikipedia Art.


--Mike