[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Toolserver-l] [TS logo] Fwd: Free as in Wikimedia Foundation

Wed Mar 20 09:02:30 UTC 2013

This is indeed why I dislike the whole trademark move. Not because I don't
understand the difference between trademarks and copyright, but probably I
have different goals in mind. It is a natural state for a legal team to
play defensive, and protect. I can't blame them for that, although the
communication is in this case particularly poor (and being overloaded with
work should perhaps have meant postponing the request in the first place
until after community consultation).

We have had the same discussion about the Wiki Loves Monuments trademark
internally a while ago, and we decided as volunteers we didn't want to
trademark it at all - because it brings along all kind of bureaucracy and
we didn't consider that worth the 'benefits'. Using the logo/name would
mean you need to sign (and negotiate) a contract, it means you have to
create and follow silly policies as explained before (I mean, this whole
"is a registered trademark of" just doesn't work in many situations). The
downsides are clear.

Then you should consider what you're going to exactly winning with a
registration. It looks nice on the wall of registered marks of course, but
that protection you get, how helpful would that exactly be? That is a valid
discussion to have - but it should be had as a community. Especially since
this was ironically named a community logo.

In any case, we can still have this discussion. And if we agree to not like
the trademark, we could either ask the WMF to drop it, or we could simply
design a new one. But before we do that, we should probably create a good
RfC, and get a clear overview of what exactly are all the benefits and
downsides of a registered trademark versus an unregistered one.

Best,
Lodewijk

2013/3/20 Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com>

> 2013/3/20 James Alexander <jamesofur at gmail.com>:
> > On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I won't argue the fact that there is value in protecting the
> >> iconography of the Wikimedia movement from abuse. What I argue with is
> >> the approach of the legal department - to unilaterally, and without
> >> notice, contradict the purpose of a set of logos by declaring
> >> ownership over them, and then to at the same time suggest the
> >> community hold a contest to create a whole new set of logos over which
> >> the WMF will supposedly not take the same action.
> >>
> >>
> > I'll be the first to say I think the idea of having a contest to create a
> > new logo is a bit silly. I think we should continue to use the
> > meta/community logo and that it's allowed use for the community should be
> > very very broad (much broader then we would allow for the Wikipedia Globe
> > for example). I think we have enough issues with  branding given what I
> > would consider mistakes in the past and present and we don't need 'yet
> > another' for the community (given that we also use all of the other logos
> > to represent the community at times).
>
> I agree - it hardly make any sense, especially because the story may
> happen again. If the new logo is popular it will be trademarked by WMF
> as well :-)
>
>
>
>
> > I don't, however, think that they did the wrong thing here. I've been
> > around meta and the community for a long time and I would have honestly
> > assumed long ago that the community logo was trademarked and the
> foundation
> > was just very free in letting it be used. All of the foundations
> trademarks
> > were going through registration processes around the world because they
> > realized that our portfolio did not cover us very well. This made total
> > sense to be included in it.
>
> Well, actually the legal situation is defined by trademark policy of WMF:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy
>
> According to this policy it applies to the following logos:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks
>
> so it includes MediaWiki and community logos as well in similar way as
> Wikipedia logo. You can read in the policy:
>
> "The following basic guidelines apply to almost any use of the
> Wikimedia Marks in printed materials, including marketing, articles
> and other publicity-related materials, and websites:
>
> "Proper Form - Wikimedia Marks should be used in their exact form —
> neither abbreviated nor combined with any other word or words (e.g.,
> "Wiki" or "MyWikipedia" rather than "Wikipedia");
> Notice - The following notice should appear somewhere nearby (at least
> on the same page or on the credits page) the first use of a Wikimedia
> Mark: "[TRADEMARK] is a ['registered', if applicable] trademark of the
> Wikimedia Foundation";
> Distinguishable - In at least the first reference, we ask that the
> trademark should be set apart from surrounding text, either by
> capitalizing it or by italicizing, bolding or underlining it. In
> addition, we ask that your website avoid copying the look and feel of
> the Wikimedia websites — again, we do not want the visitor to your
> website to be confused about which company he/she is dealing with.
> Attention Paid to Visual Guidelines - any use of the Wikimedia Marks
> should substantially comply with our Trademark and Logo Usage Policy
> and our Visual Identity Guidelines. "
>
> And  - when you take a look at:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_logos
>
> and to:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Community_Logos
>
> you see that all of them (except originaly trademarked) broke the
> trademark policy rules :-) The are combined with other words and
> graphs, they have no notice, they do not follow any visual guidelines
> etc. :-)  So - in fact they should be deleted as a WMF trademark
> policy violation - or trademark policy should be modified.  Bear in
> mind that even toolserver logo - which is obviously a derivative work
> of community logo - should not be used according the current WMF
> trademark policy. I think it is not intended, and WMF will never do
> any legal action towards the creators and users of this derivative
> logos - but all this situation is unclear at the moment. I think this
> is a job for WMF Board of Trustees to clarify the situation - for
> example by excluding MediaWiki and community logos from the rules
> forbiding creation of derivative logos and  "Visual Identity
> Guidelines".
>
>
> --
> Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
> http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz
>
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