[Foundation-l] RfC: A Free Content and Expression Definition

Tue May 2 20:25:00 UTC 2006

On 5/2/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Remembering previous conversations, you conveniently forget what to do
> about logos of companies and similar info. For the English language
> Wikipedia it is "not a problem" because the problem is hidden under
> their "fair use". It is however really powerful information. People
> KNOW organisations by their logos and it does make sense to have a way
> to include these using a license that does allow for inclusion.

While en.wp has initially been extremely liberal in its application of
"fair use", a few other Wikipedias prohibit it entirely. I think it's
time that we work towards fair use / fair dealing policies on all
Wikimedia projects. This is going to be a bit tricky as we have to
distinguish between the law that applies to the uploader of the work,
and the law that applies to the Wikimedia Foundation which is hosting
the work.

I would appreciate a legal opinion on how to best achieve this - my
own feeling is that the fair use policies of a project like de.wp or
nl.wp should explain the legal situation in countries where these
languages are predominantly spoken, while allowing the freedoms
granted under U.S. law.

When each project has very limited fair use, pictures like logos or
screenshots should not be an issue, Gerard. As I've argued before,
there are going to be very, very few cases where a company will agree
to license their logo under something like CC-ND. Imagine such a
proposal being sent to Nike. "Dear Nike, we'd like to use your logo,
could you please license it under Creative Commons No-Derivatives"?
Corporate lawyers are all about risk minimization; seeing no benefit
in such an arrangement, most of them would flat our reject the idea, I
think.

The use of CC-ND for logos would actually be dangerous as it could
prevent us from looking for a better solution. I don't think there's
any court in this world who would find copyright infringement if we
add the logo of a company to an encyclopedia article. Our policies
just need to allow making use of these exemptions to copyright law.

Erik