[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia.ru & Wikimedia.de

[Daniel Mayer]

Erik wrote:
>I agree that they would be legally suspect. I was 
>talking about the morality of trademark law. If I 
>advertise my Olympics to make money with them, then 
>I agree that it is moral to stop me from doing that. 
>But if there is no profit motive, trademark law 
>should not be applicable.

Unfortunately, IIRC the law doesn't make a distinction
between for profit vs not for profit uses when it
comes to trademark infringement (that is only
considered when establishing penalties). So if we let
not-for-profit uses run rampant then we still loose
control of our trademark and will have no legal
footing whatsoever when a nasty for-profit user comes
along.  

>> And what about the initial hijacking of our 
>> trademark to begin with?

>They did not hijack any registered trademark, and 
>unregistered trademarks seem to be a US-specific 
>thing.

I didn't say they hijacked a registered trademark, and
as far as the ICANN is concerned, we definitely pass
the trademark test.

>Unless you show evidence that this is the case 
>outside the US I will assume that it is not. And that

>makes the argument very weak, legally speaking.

Again, we will never get to that level since all we
have to do is write ICANN. Of course we should try to
work things out with Wikipedia.ru first. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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