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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