[WikiEN-l] Images of corporate logos

Wed Feb 18 22:48:39 UTC 2004

Logos are clearly fair use in our articles about companies. However, we should also pursue the licensing options described in the talk page of the article. The reasons are pragmatic: if we're licensed, we're less likely to have legal action taken against us. Also, being licensed allows us to clearly use the images in every country except the US, where fair use equivalents are often significantly more restrictive. That is, licensing is an asset, not a liability. Well, unless you like needless legal action because we didn't ask for a free to acquire license, that is.

I've dealt with PR Newswire (I have a license from them myself) and spoke with them about Wikipedia licensing some months ago. No problem to license us. All we have to do is ask officially and we'll have worldwide licenses for corporate logos and all sorts of other images, almost all of which are also going to be fair use in the US, when used as we'll use them. Similarly, no problem for other encyclopedias to obtain a license - it's a specific category on their application and the applications are generally accepted. It's paperwork, but that's about all - it doesn't actually restrict things. It certainly doesn't stop us from telling people that while we have a license, it's also fair use.