[WikiEN-l] NASA meatballs and wikipedia meatheads

[Peter Ansell]

On 01/04/2008, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > What are their rationales? That US government produced symbols can't
>  >  be put in images inside of wikipedia even though the image is Public
>  >  Domain by law?
>
>
> The "meatball" insignia is not protected by copyright law (ie, it's
>  PD) but it is protected by other, specific, non-copyright federal
>  regulations:
>
>  http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_07/14cfr1221_07.html
>
>  Use of the insignia contrary to the regulations is punishable by a
>  fine and/or imprisonment:
>
>  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000701----000-.html

How is reproducing a public domain image going against that law? If
they wanted to copyright the image so that people couldn't use it they
wouldn't have put it in the public domain right? Wikipedia doesn't put
its logo under a free license because it doesn't want people to
well... use it? The government can't take those kind of liberties
without a reason though, right?

And besides, if you don't want the image because it would promote
something that is not the one true source of knowledge (hail WP) then
you can just take it out, you can definitely at least do that to
Public Domain items.

Peter