[Foundation-l] what do we do in the event the Foundation fails? - Re: Pol...

Wed Apr 18 22:53:24 UTC 2007

On 4/18/07, Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're talking, if I am not mistaken, about the Foundation going
> because some ill-willed company/person/alien has decided to bring it
> down.
>
> It is still my belief that the name Wikipedia, how ever much it is
> worth today, will only be worth anything in the long run if the spirit
> lives with it.

Yes, but by failing to protect the domain names and trademarks, the
Foundation makes itself a much wider target than it would otherwise
be.  If the Foundation properly protected its intellectual property,
people would be less inclined to sue it, because they'd only get at
most a million or so in used server hardware.  But right now, sue the
Foundation and you might end up owning a billion dollar portfolio of
domain names and trademarks.  Bonanza!

The long term value of the marks is irrelevant to someone who only
wants to monetize them.  And the short term realizable monetizable
value of Wikimedia's intellectual property is more than most of you on
this list can even begin to imagine.

Kelly