[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia: The Missing Manual (O'Reilly, Dec 2007)

[Steven Walling]

Okay, wow. I'm stupid. Scratch that last post. (est. publication Dec 2007)

On 10/21/07, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
>
> Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual
> contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
>
> On 10/21/07, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc at ktchan.info> wrote:
>
> > > If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my
> > > comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that.  Ohwell."  Too
> > > bad.
> >
> > (IANAL)
> >
> > I shall refer you to our own article [[Trademark]] which provides a link
> >
> > to "Fair Use of Trademarks" (http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html) .
> >
> > The work is not contributing to the dilution of the trademark, it is not
> > disparaging, it does not turn the trademark into a noun or verb or
> > plural form, the trademark stand out as such. It otherwise fulfill
> > requirement for "nominative use" of another's trademark, including the
> > work "does nothing that would, in conjunction with the trademark,
> > suggest to the reader sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark
> > owner". I'm also pretty sure that there would be disclaimer about who
> > own the Wikipedia trademark inside the book, not endorsement etc.
> >
> > > > It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an
> > > > encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people,
> > > > organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or
> > > > to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise
> > > > about our right to do this.
> > >
> > > I think the title of an encyclopedia article is significantly
> > > different from the title of a book.  "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual"
> > > strikes me as something created by Wikipedia.  When I saw the title to
> > > this thread, that's what I thought it was going to be.  Even "The
> > > Missing Manual: Wikipedia" would be less confusing in my opinion.  So
> > > I figured from this that trademark law would apply.
> >
> > Only because you're familiar with the web page title of a Wikipedia's
> > article. If you look at the article book, no reasonable person would be
> > confuse by it being an article rather than a book that describe
> > Wikipedia (or eBay or ...).
> >
> > We're also not talking just the title of a Wikipedia's article. We use
> > the name in the title, we use it multiple time within the article, we
> > (at least a sizeable portion) fight for the fair use of their logo and
> > what not in the article in describing them. It's not any different here.
> >
> > In our article, we talk about a company, a company product etc. Here,
> > the book talk about how someone would go about editing Wikipedia.
> >
> > Just because you might not agree with someone writing a book that's not
> > free content doesn't mean we can have different interpretation of fair
> > use applying to our use of someone else's IP and someone else use of our
> > project IP.
> >
> > > > Firefox became too concerned
> > > > with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian)
> > -
> > > > who does that help?
> > > >
> > > This has nothing to do with Firefox.
> >
> > We're talking about another use of one's trademark, it's not as far
> > apart in concept as you might otherwise suggest.
> >
> > KTC
> >
> > --
> > Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
> >   - Heinrich Heine
> >
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> >
>