[WikiEN-l] Re: Seals and Commons

Wed Sep 14 13:53:56 UTC 2005

On 9/14/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Use of the Central Intelligence Agency Seal
> Federal law prohibits use of the words Central Intelligence Agency,
> the initials CIA, the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency, or any
> colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in connection
> with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial
> activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression
> that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the Central
> Intelligence Agency.
> http://www.cia.gov/cia/notices.html#seal

Of course, in all fairness, I might also point out that it could just
be that in this instance I'm misreading this clause -- perhaps it is
only saying that you can't use it in a commercial situation IF it is
implying endorsement. I'm somewhat unclear on what we should regard
the copyright status of logos of federal agencies, because they often
seem to be handled differently than "materials produced by" those
agencies in question -- much more restricted and regulated, not
"public domain" in the sense that you can use and re-use and produce
your own copyrights with them.

FF