From the Foundation-L post:
we sent a letter to
Wikipedia Art that was aimed, not to threaten legal action, but to outline
what our legal concerns were, and to try to begin a negotiation to resolve
the matter amicably -- ideally by switching the domain name over to us, but
not by requiring any content changes on their site at all.
This is disingenuous. A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal
concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will settle
matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat. It may not actually
include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not being a
legal threat is absurd.
I can answer that question -- it's wholly unrelated
to the recent Board
statement on trademarks. Our concern was not primarily about trademarks.
This spawned a discussion where someone pointed out that the letter *was*
primarily about trademarks, and Mike replied that it wasn't about the board
statement, which only relates to the first of those two sentences. Again,
spin.
Yeah, Wikipedia Art are basically trolls, but I find this disturbing. If
Wikipedia can make legal threats to trolls and deny it, and accuse trolls of
trademark violation in a baseless way, they can do it to anyone, and the
next guy they do it to may not necessarily be a troll.