[Juriwiki-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation of our 'MediaWiki' mark

Tue Nov 1 00:44:26 UTC 2005

On 10/31/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > C'mon, you're talking about the headline.
>
> NOT just the headline, but the body text as well. The whole thing is so
> badly
> written that it confuses their offering (hosting that involves MediaWiki
> installs) with the software itself. That is the type of thing that
> dillutes a
> trademark and needs to be defended against if the foundation wishes to
> keep
> control of that mark.

I'm not very familiar at all with the laws against trademark infringement
and dilution (I do know that they're different things, though). Anyway,
yeah, if the foundation wishes to establish and/or maintain control of the
mark they need to actively defend them in some way. Hopefully in this case
that just means asking them to fix things, because if it involves actually
getting legal on their ass the cost probably isn't worth the benefit.

Is there an officer who either is tasked with this type of thing or can
appoint someone to be? A request really needs to come from someone acting as
an agent of the foundation, and having it come from 50 different wannabies
is going to be counter-productive.

> They could add "MediaWiki is software created by the
> > Wikimedia Foundation", except that the Wikimedia Foundation is only
> *one* of
> > the authors of the software (they certainly own the copyright on
> anything
> > done by the lead developer as part of his duties as an employee).
>
> This has never been made clear. IIRC, the informal guiding principle on
> Brion's
> paid work on MediaWiki is that he at least controls the copyright. This is
> certainly something that needs to be made clear (control and ownership may
> also
> be two different things).

> Mav also said: "I suggested the name as a play on the foundation's name;
> > Wikimedia ->
> > MediaWiki." Now there's something I never knew. What was the software
> called
> > before it was called MediaWiki?
>
> <horrid name> "Wikipedia Software Phase II" </horrid name> Once upon a
> time
> somebody suggested the name "PediaWiki", to which the developers and
> everybody
> in earshot ran away screaming from.
>
> > Rowan Collins said: "I know the two can be distinct, but since at no
> point
> > has copyright in
> > the software belonged even partially to the WMF" Actually, that's not
> true.
> > WMF currently owns the copyright on anything created by its employees as
> > part of their duties.
>
> By default that is standard practice. But I don't know if that was the
> understanding between Brion and Jimmy. You'll need to ask them to make
> that
> point clear.
>
> -- mav

According to the US Code, a work made by an employee within the scope of his
employment is *always* a work made for hire. The copyright may have been
transfered (and that transfer can be terminated after 35 years), but AFAIK
you can't change the authorship of a work.

Of course, to further confuse things, WikiMedia may very well be a work of
joint authorship, and in that case Brion is probably one of the joint
authors along with the WMF.