[Foundation-l] Offering Wikibooks content for sale

Wed Jul 5 17:41:33 UTC 2006

geni wrote:

>On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>The use of the title "Wikijunior Big Cats" is itself a trademark, as is
>>even just "Big Cats".
>>    
>>
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>Could you expand on this point?
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>

I'm just pointing out that if for some reason a book called "Wikijunior 
Big Cats" is widely known as a valuable book and appears in many 
different classrooms and the hands of many parents and children, it is 
something by itself that is a brand that is highly recognized.

Some companies, notably Paramount Studios with their Star Trek 
franchise, have gone to incredible lengths to trademark all kinds of 
related words as trademarks and even have gone through the effort to 
register them with the USPTO.  Notably Captain Kirk, Spock, Uhura, 
Scotty, and other names are formally trademarked and can't be used 
theoretically without formal permission from Paramount, keeping you from 
even potentially writing fan fiction using those characters or even 
writing commentary about Star Trek episodes.  This very posting to the 
mailing list, under extreme interpretation of the law, could be 
considered an infringing use of trademarks for that company.

In this same token, it might be possible for the WMF to control 
publication rights to Wikimedia project content merely on the basis of 
trademark infringement, as has appeared to have occured here with the 
Wikijunior Big Cats book.  Clearly this is the name of the Wikibook and 
it is being worked on by Wikibooks users, with numerous links to the 
project page under that name from many other sources both within and 
outside of Wikimedia projects.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning