[Foundation-l] GFDL publisher credit (was: Wikibooks for sale)

Tue Jul 4 19:31:56 UTC 2006

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> 
>In a message dated 7/4/2006 2:19:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
>wikilegal at inbox.org writes:
>
>This is  especially true when an
>employee of the foundation implies that playing it  safe and assuming
>the foundation does hold a copyright interest and is a  publisher is
>somehow a violation of trademark  law.
>
>
>
>To be perfectly clear, Anthony, I stated that our name (and logo) are  
>trademarked. That is unquestionable. The books were listed as being created the  
>Foundation, yet we had no knowledge of it. In other words, the publisher used  
>our trademarked name on a book without the agreement of  the Foundation. While I 
>am not assuming malicious intent, that is  clearly unacceptable. Don't twist 
>what I said.
> 
>Danny
>  
>
I don't understand how you could not have knowledge of this book when 
you claim that you were in the middle of delicate negotiations about 
this specific book.  All you didn't have knowledge of was one user 
taking content on Wikibooks and simply offering it for sale.  The claim 
that the contents were credited with the WMF as a "co-author" or 
"publisher" has been on the PDF now for almost a year and not disputed 
until now.  Technically "published" on Wikibooks for that whole time.

I am also not exactly clear as to what is unacceptable here.  Using the 
Wikijunior trademark?  Acknowledging that the WMF had a part in the 
creation of the content in this book?

The only thing that might be an issue is if this had claimed to be an 
"official" print version "authorized" by the WMF, which it didn't.

If the trademark usage is unacceptable, there are other Wikibooks which 
need to be fixed as well, because this style of usage for invoking the 
name of the WMF is catching on at Wikibooks.  Also, there are legitimate 
uses of a trademark that don't need permission of the trademark holder. 
 Perhaps we crossed the line here as Wikimedia users, and for that I am 
asking for some guidelines.  Not simply "you went too far, don't go 
there again", but something a little bit more constructive.  I don't see 
how using the name of the Wikimedia Foundation in the acknowledgements 
sections of a book is abuse of a trademark.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning