[Foundation-l] Swedish Wikipedians removes Wikimedia logos

[Mike Godwin]

masti writes:

It's crazy. sv.wiki still has "unfree" logo on every page :)
> It is "unfree" to protect wiki identity.
>

This is exactly right.  If we had no copyright or trademark restrictions on
the Wikimedia logos and marks, it would be trivial for proprietary vendors
to use the unrestricted logos in association with unfree content.

My experience has been that those who object to this haven't given adequate
attention to the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses we operate under --
neither license is "free," and each imposes restrictions and obligations on
reusers of content.  What we're doing with the Wikimedia trademarks is
designed to reinforce this insistence on the freedom of the content we are
disseminating.

My guess, admittedly based on nothing but anecdotal evidence, is that the
Swedish Wikipedians who created this largely artificial and unnecessary
dispute have not consulted independent trademark and copyright experts with
regard to the rationale for their decision.

Robert Rohde writes:

Personally, I also feel that it sets a bad example for a free content
> company like WMF not to have any formal policy on the third party use
> of their logos.  Even within Wikimedia there is no agreement about
> what is allowed and what isn't, except that Mike and others have
> generally said they don't object to most uses by the community, even
> while reserving full copyright control and the right to object in the
> future.
>

I feel as if the many months of work I put into developing a new, clearer,
liberal trademark policy for WMF has gone to waste!

>
> It has been three or four years since I first asked members of the WMF
> to draft a policy on logo use that would be clear about what is
> allowed both in the community and for reusers.


And now I really, really feel it was wasted!

Given that we don't have clear policies regarding logo use, I think
> the Swedish Wikipedia decision is entirely defensible.


Darn it! A waste, I say! And I worked so hard to give you
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_Policy>.


--Mike