[Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering
Anthere
anthere9 at yahoo.com
Thu Nov 16 22:52:31 UTC 2006
For the record, I am shocked by your entire email.
Deeply.
ATR wrote:
> The fact of the matter was that Jimbo applied for the MediaWiki
> trademark and then I fixed the application afterwards. The term "MEDIAWIKI"
> is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. This was done
> after the foundation was created, not before. This was not hidden from
> anyone
> it is a matter of public record:
>
> http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78507335
>
> http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=6lvb7s.3.1
>
> As you can see from the database TESS record it clearly states that the
> trademark
> was: "FIRST USE: 20030808. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20030809" The
> foundation was incorporated on June 20, 2003, August 8-9, 2003 is subsequent
> to that date. Thus, this is after the Foundation was created, not before. It
> was first
> posted on Wikimedia project web pages and it was proposed to be used in that
> context, no other. The logo was not create before that date, but afterwards.
I never argued that the Foundation never applied to the tm. Nor that it
tried to hide it. I object to your statement that the authors of the
logo (Erik and for a very little part myself) were informed that the
logo would be trademarked by the Foundation. THis is false and you know it.
> How can
> you say you own something when a part of it belongs to someone else?
???
Sorry. Belongs to who ?
If you intend to claim I am not the author of the flower picture because
it belongs to the Foundation, I think you are showing a badly twisted mind.
> Also Brion was aware of the trademark application and knows that the
> trademark has been
> registered by the foundation:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2005-November/004774.html
> |"5) The Foundation may own the trademark on the name MediaWiki, which
> |postdates the creation of the software itself.
> |
> |6) A trademark registration for the mark was filed last year on behalf
> |of the foundation, though it hasn't totally gone through yet. (I'm not
> |the person to ask for details on that.)
> |
> |-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)"
>
The fact that Brion knew and agreed is not the proof all developers knew
and agreed. Are you saying here that Brion is the only author and the
only person whose opinion matters ?
> Brion acknowledges that the foundation was getting a registration for the
> trademark,
> he or other developers never opposed this registration. They probably would
> find it
> very difficult to overturn that registratino now if they tried.
I agree. That's why I say there is a sufficient history.
> There is also a discussion about the creation & licensing of WMF trademarks
> and
> ownership by the foundation. I have not been able to find it, but when I do
> I will post it;
> this was the allusion I made to Jimbo being able to back up the fact that
> the Foundation
> expected people to grant the ownership of any logos to the foundation and
> not release
> them through some other license (why else would you create a logo for a
> brand, it makes
> no sense otherwise?)
I would be intereested to see this email, which of course would have to
have been posted PRIOR to the logo contest.
Afaik, there is no such email.
> The fact of a logo being made up of PD images, does not mean that someone
> can
> cannot recognize that MEDIAWIKI links back to WMF. It is up to the
> foundation to police that. If any people think they own it they can hire
> lawyers and
> bring the appropriate legal action to get the trademark invalided and then
> the foundation
> can either fight that or give it up. That seems really silly to me because
> the foundation is
> not making money out of this, (any suggestion is ridiculous because it is
> released under
> the GPL which allows free copying and alteration).
Wake up Alex !
The fact a software is under gpl does not imply no one will try to make
money on it. The Foundation could do that, just as Red Hat is making
money with Linux. This suggestion is in no way ridiculous.
This is just there to try
> and prevent
> people from stripping off the information about the contributors to the
> project, there is
> really not much else that the foundation can do because the software is
> released under
> the GPL anyway. It just keeps the WMF flavor of MediaWiki distinct from all
> others.
> Is that really something anyone needs to fight about or that we want to deny
> because
> individuals want everything in the public domain and do not care about the
> moral
> rights of authors, such as the right of attribution (which is still
> rightfully protected by
> most so called "copyleft" licenses because it is not an economic right but a
> right
> normally considered part of the "droit d'auteur" bundle of rights associated
> with
> intellectual work that countries like France and Canada recognize as being
> as important
> or even more important than the economic rights (unfortunately the USA has
> very limited
> moral rights protections for creators).
>
> As far as the ownership of these things are concerned, if you do not have
> the right to release something into the public domain because it does not
> belong
> to you then you cannot later release it into the public domain as an
> afterthought
> and I would suggest that creating a logo that uses the trademarked term
> MediaWiki
> cannot be copyrighted by anyone other than the foundationno matter what the
> other
> people say, even if it is made up of a composite of public domain images
> (which
> do not have the licensing limitations of the GFDL or CC licenses).
This is an absolutely outrageous comment Alex. You are here saying that
because the name Mediawiki was added to the logo after its creation (the
logo was created in summer 2003, for the Wikipedia contest, so
originally, it did not have the Mediawiki word in it), I lost my right
to release an image that *I* authored under the license I wish.
Are you realising what you are saying ?
I do not care the image is "embedded" in the logo, but the image itself
has an independant life and no one has the right to strip me of my
author rights on it. It is shocking to tell me I am not allowed to
choose myself under which licence an image I produced should be released
simply because later it is used in a tm logo.
> The only record of owning the trademark MEDIAWIKI is with the WMF, anyone
> else
> using it is a trademark infringement. Does it matter who owns the copyright
> or even if it is copyrightable because it may just be so generic as not to
> be subject to copyright, i.e. the brackets and the sunflower show no
> inherent creativity as elements, they are just standard symbols.
Excuse me ?
The sunflower is NOT a symbol. It is a photo I took myself in a
perfectly good sunflower field. They were 2 meters high. I had to find a
way to reach the flower. Find a way to take a close up of it even though
I was nearly escalating the plant. Find a way to escape the sun to have
the right light. And it is to be considered generic with no author right ?
What will you say to the thousands of wikipedians who took a picture of
a device, of a monument, or of a painting. That it is just generic and
that they actually do not own any right on it and that it can not be
subject to copyright ?
This
> reminds me of the dispute with that Neo-Nazi group that tried to claim it
> owned copyright in some symbol that was clearly not subject to copyright:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arrow_Cross but of course the consensus on
> this issue seemed to be that they actually owned the copyright and the
> images were taken off Wikipedia because no one really seemed to want to
> fight these fascists.
>
And you even reach the godwin point.
That will be it for me.
Anthere
> We should be congnizant of the need to only fight battles that are
> important, not
> every fact dispute that exists because the reality is that there are a lot
> of these
> disputes and the resources to fight them are limited.
>
> There is clearly a policy about Wikimedia logos being an exception to the
> content
> on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing
> "Use by Wikimedia only (the only non-free-licensed exceptions hosted here as
> well are Wikimedia logos and other designs copyrighted by the Wikimedia
> Foundation that are the trademarks, service marks or other design elements
> that identify the sites of the various projects of the Wikimedia
> Foundation)"
>
> If the Foundation board thinks this is incorrect they should have their
> General Counsel
> correct it or put people on Notice that anyone can use these logos for
> anything they want
> because they are on Commons and thus, according to the logic of some
> Wikipedians,
> must be released under the GFDL (even if they were never so released before
> being posted
> on Commons).
>
> Alex T. Roshuk, Attorney
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anthere" <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> To: <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering
>
>
> | ATR wrote:
> | >
> | > |> > I don't think the foundation owns the mediawiki logo. Copyright
> wise
> | > |> > it is in the public domain.
> | > |> Hoi,
> | > |> Given the age of the thing it cannot be PD yet. They are part of a
> | > |> trademark and as such they are owned by the Foundation. They can if
> they
> | > |> so choose license the logos. This is problematic because the rights
> that
> | > |> are usual for other WMF content contrasts with the requirement of
> | > |> maintaining the trademark.
> | > |
> | > |No, the MediaWiki one really is public domain.
> | > |http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png
> | > |
> | > |Whether or not it is also a trademark of the Foundation doesn't affect
> | > |its copyright status.
> | > |
> | > |Angela.
> | >
> | > Someone cannot declare a work PD just by copying it. It seems the
> | > actual logo was created by Eric Moller, and it has always been the
> | > understanding with all logos that they were "works made for hire" for
> | > the foundation. This has been discussed previously and Jimbo can
> | > back this up. Just because someone put a PD tag on the page at
> | > Commons does not invalidate the Foundation's claim to this logo.
> | >
> | > As far as the "trademark" status of the logo, the word MEDIAWIKI is
> | > a registered mark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. I know this because
> | > I am the attorney of record on the USPTO file that granted this mark to
> | > the foundation. Also the actual logo is also a mark of the Wikimedia
> | > Foundation Inc., and is used to identify the MediaWiki software which
> | > is released by the Foundation and is a foundation project.
> | >
> | > Of course all trademarks can also be used based upon principles of
> | > fair use that apply to trademarks in a similiar way as copyrights. The
> | > important issue is that the mark is not used in a way to confuse the
> | > public or dilute the brand which the mark represents as this is the kind
> | > of protection that the law affords mark holders.
> | >
> | > Alex T Roshuk
> | > Attorney at law
> |
> |
> | Can I put my feet in the mud here ?
> |
> | The logo was a creation of Erik. The flower is from me (see here:
> | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol%28L%29.jpg)
> |
> | After the end of the contest, Erik decided to use that logo for
> | mediawiki. At this time, it was not clear at all the logos would be
> | trademarked by the Foundation. The truth is we had no idea at that time
> | how important trademarks would be in the future. Well, the Foundation
> | was created only a couple of months before the international contest for
> | logos. There was no set up board. There were no board decision. There
> | were no resolution. In short, there is absolutely no trackable way to
> | prove there was an understanding the Foundation would own the trademark.
> | This is just bullshit. There was no clear understanding. We were young,
> | we did not know. Period.
> |
> | My memory is also very clear that developers did not want the mediawiki
> | logo and name to be owned by the Foundation. Of course, in real life,
> | anyone can claim to own a trademark on something that nobody else claim.
> | So, the Foundation asked to own the trademark of this, and now does. And
> | with most developers now making a living thanks to the Foundation, I
> | doubt very much any of them would ever make a complain over this. There
> | is now a history.
> |
> | Several months after the logo started being used for mediawiki, Erik
> | asked me if I would put the flower image under public domain. Again, I
> | did not know much about copyright and author rights at that time. At
> | this point, the image was under GFDL, which made no sense for a logo,
> | and no sense for what we wanted it to be used for. It may be that
> | another licence would have been better.
> |
> | The mediawiki software is very arguably a Foundation project as you
> | claim. For a long time, it was not. And the developers did not want it
> | to be. It seems the Foundation just decided at some point that it was.
> | Apparently.
> | The problem I have with this statement, is that I far as I know, I have
> | been on the board of trustees since june 2004, and I have NO memory we
> | ever decided that mediawiki was a wikimedia project. For all I know, it
> | is not. And for now, the Foundation website does not claim it is :
> | http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects.
> |
> | It is definitly a software we are using. Developers are largely
> | improving it for our projects. But others are improving it as well. The
> | main *ownership* of mediawiki is related to the main developers being
> | now paid by the Foundation. It may be a wikimedia project in this that
> | we largely support its development. But it is not officially a wikimedia
> | project. Period.
> |
> | Now, understand it well. I *prefer* that the Foundation owns the logo
> | and name trademarks, because as you say, it means the logo and name can
> | not be misused to confuse public.
> |
> | However, contrariwise to Wikipedia, the mediawiki software is not only
> | used by the Foundation, but by also thousands of projects around the
> | world. The worse thing that could happen is that people deciding to use
> | the mediawiki find themselves obliged to ask permission or even worse to
> | pay the Foundation to use the software, use the name, use the little
> | logo, powered by Mediawiki. If something like this ever occurs in the
> | future, I hope developers will consider changing the name, changing the
> | logo and make it possible for the software to spread freely. This is
> | what is important, and as long as the Foundation respects this spirit,
> | and only defend the logo and name against bad uses, I am fine with the
> | current situation.
> |
> | In the end, I am only pissed of to see claims about what the Foundation
> | owns, said, agreed to, blahblahblah, provided with the stamp "Jimbo can
> | back this up". The Foundation is governed by a board. And as Angela will
> | probably agree to, there are some decisions which were never made by the
> | board. Which makes their validity questionnable.
> |
> | Ant
> |
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