[Foundation-l] Fair Use and Registered Trademarks

Thu Jul 7 17:04:51 UTC 2005

Well, trademark law has limited applications, mainly to commercial  
matters. And I don't see how using the 1911 public domain  
encyclopedia can infringe the Britannica trademark. They can pretend  
it does, but to sum it up, Britannica is a work, the title of this  
work and a trademark.

Once the work is public domain, anybody is entitled to reproduce it  
under under its right title since this title is itself part of the work.

Thus, the trademark only protects Britannica from competitive uses  
(like if someone tries to launch a Britannica book collection).

Basically, the reproduction Britannica 1911 edition is not using the  
trademark Britannica, but the title Britannica.

It is always important to remember that Trademark Law is much more  
restrictive than Copyright Law.

I cc Michael Hart in case he remembers anything about this settlement  
with Britannica.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron

Le 6 juil. 05 à 14:09, Robert Scott Horning a écrit :

> I've come across a potential legal issue that has an impact across  
> several Wikimedia projects that I'd like to bring up for general  
> discussion.
>
> I've been trying to find a home for the 1911 Wikipedia (for more  
> details, see the new project page), and I've been attempting to  
> move it to Wikisource, with the following discussion at the  
> Scriptorium: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource% 
> 3AScriptorium#1911_Wikipedia
>
> The larger issue I am seeking input from the regulars of this  
> mailing list is in regards to proper use of registered trademarks  
> for larger projects.  In this case it is how a registered trademark  
> can be properly used or avoided when a project is tied to something  
> that inevitably has strong references to registered trademarks.
>
> In this case it is in reference to the 1911 edition of the  
> Encyclopedia Britannica, where a whole sub project is going to be  
> based on content from that set of volumes.  This issue could also  
> deal with How-to books in Wikibooks or even Star Trek or Star Wars  
> trivia entries in Wikipedia, which is again why I'm posting this  
> issue here rather than other Foundation lists.
>
> In particular for the Encyclopedia Britannica, this issue already  
> came up with Project Gutenberg where Encyclopedia Britannica's  
> legal team forced Project Gutenberg into a policy statement.  Keep  
> in mind that prior to this official statement, Project Gutenberg  
> routinely referenced the associated text with the Encyclopedia  
> Britannica by name.  What resulted was the following:
>
>    "The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is a reproduction of a 1911
>    edition of a famous encyclopedia. The text has not been updated.
>    Although the text is in the public domain in the United States, the
>    original publisher still has a valid trademark in the original  
> title
>    of the encyclopedia. The original publisher offered Project
>    Gutenberg a license to use the trademark, but the terms of the
>    license were not consistent with the volunteer noncommercial nature
>    of Project Gutenberg or its primary goal of distributing electronic
>    text with the fewest possible restrictions. In order to avoid the
>    possibility of trademark infringement, all references to the
>    original title and the original publisher have been changed or
>    deleted. Because of numerous references embodying possible
>    trademarks, the entire preface has been omitted. The original
>    publisher of the 1911 print encyclopedia was not and is not  
> involved
>    in any way with the creation, editing or distribution of the  
> Project
>    Gutenberg Encyclopedia. Any errors which may have occurred in the
>    conversion to electronic form can not be attributed in any way to
>    the original publisher. In order to avoid possible future trademark
>    infringements or confusion in the minds of the public, this
>    electronic version should be referred to as the Project Gutenberg
>    Encyclopedia. The name of the original print encyclopedia should  
> not
>    be used in any way in connection with this electronic text."
>
> I am suggesting that the Wikimedia Foundation follow the lead of  
> Project Gutenberg in this case and try to avoid implied endorsement  
> by also avoiding the use of registered trademarks when possible.   
> The real question then is how and in what cases should registered  
> trademarks be omitted?  Obviously there shouldn't be much of a  
> problem for a Wikipedia article about a company, but it gets into  
> grey areas when you get into a collection of articles that could be  
> refered to by using a registered trademark, such as Ford mussle  
> cars or kinds of SPAM.
>
> Obviously each Wikimedia project will end up having to deal with  
> this issue independently on the fine points, but it wouldn't hurt  
> to establish some general policy guidelines either.  Any general  
> assistance would be appreciated.
>
> -- 
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
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