[Foundation-l] Wikimedia logos on Commons

Fri Aug 24 02:11:25 UTC 2007

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Personally I feel that the real answer is to figure out what
> "free/libre" truly means in the context of identifying works such as
> logos. I don't believe existing free content licenses are appropriate
> for such works. The main purpose of a logo is to identify something.
> To "liberate" it in the sense of permitting completely unrestricted
> use is to render it useless.  But perhaps "liberation" here should
> mean something different.

Copyright and trademark are distinct.  I don't know of a reason to impose 
copyright restrictions on logos.  You still retain the right to protect 
the use of the logo in a way that might be confusing (with respect
to identifying something).

It should be possible in a copyright sense to use an image in a variety of 
ways as long as the result isn't confusing in the trademark sense.

> For example:
> - a free/libre logo could be one which can be used in a list of
> defined scenarios without permission.
> - a free/libre logo could be one which makes the frictionless model of
> "don't ask for permission but respect requests for removal" explicit.

A combination of these two would be great.  Clear permission scenarios,
and some fuzzy ones in which the 'dont ask but respect requests' kicks in.

> - a free/libre logo could be one which always has a corresponding,
> freely licensed "community" logo (Debian style).

This would be a mistake.  Who in the Debian community thinks this was a 
good idea?  Nowadays noone uses the non-community logo.

> To me, it sounds like a job for a workgroup of interested people who
> would bring both a legal and an ethical  perspective to the subject.
> Is anyone interested in pursuing this line of reasoning further?

Yes.

SJ