[Foundation-l] Use of logos within Wikimedia sites

Wed Feb 7 03:07:40 UTC 2007

This is cute.
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NotSuckBanner.jpg

It strikes me that images such as this one, which use project logos (not 
the Foundation logo) should

  a) be available under a specific license describing how they can be 
reused without permission
  b) be fairly unrestricted for community use, allowing derivations

Of course there are trademark recourses for those who use the images to 
mislead others; but community members illustrating or celebrating work 
they are doing on and for Wikipedia are not being misleading.

There has been work in other communities regarding distinguishing between 
"official" and open-use community logos.  For instance, you can see 
Debian's dual logos here:
    http://www.debian.org/logos/  [1]

--SJ

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007, DF wrote:

> Wikimedia's logos are copyrighted and trademarked.
> Notwithstanding this, the logos have been placed on a
> large number of pages under circumstances where other
> copyrighted works would never be used.  Often this is
> done simply for identification (e.g. this page is
> about Wikipedia, so it has the Wikipedia logo), and
> other times it is done for what might be called
> promotional reasons.  Most such uses undoubtedly occur
> without any direct input from the Foundation.
>
> For examples, see the links on:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia-logo-en.png
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia-logo.png
>
> In addition, any image that incorporates a Wikimedia
> logo has generally been marked "Copyright by
> Wikimedia", regardless of the image's immediate
> author:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CopyrightByWikimedia
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:CopyrightByWikimedia
>
> Some of these have apparently been created by
> Wikipedians specifically to promote Wikipedia:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banners_and_buttons
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_promotion
>
> Recently, one of these promotional
> banners(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NotSuckBanner.jpg)
> was deleted (and now temporarily undeleted, subject to
> deletion review) essentially for violating Wikipedia's
> rules on the use of copyrighted works.  (Or in other
> words, because it was a copyrighted image not being
> used in an article.)
>
> Now many of us believe that there could reasonably be
> an exception to Wikipedia's copyright rules when it
> comes to images owned by Wikimedia itself, especially
> if they serve a useful purpose like promoting
> Wikipedia.  However, because of the unique role that
> the logos play in the visual identity of Wikipedia, I
> wanted to come here and get guidance from the
> Foundation about what constitutes acceptable use.  I
> would appreciate it if people would review the
> materials on the pages linked above and give some
> direction on when logos can be incorporated in other
> images and what kinds of pages they might reasonably
> be used on.  In particular, are promotional tools like
> banners and the like acceptable?
>
> -Robert Rohde
> aka Dragons_flight on EN
>
>
>
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