[Foundation-l] Swedish Wikipedians removes Wikimedia logos

Mon Mar 29 22:56:33 UTC 2010

George Herbert wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc at ktchan.info> wrote:
>   
>> Marcus Buck wrote:
>>     
>>> The Swedish Wikipedia decision is consequent and logical. Logos are
>>> copyrighted. Copyrighted material cannot be included. So no logos. It's
>>> plain and simple. The problem is not the reasonable decision of the Swedish
>>> Wikipedia, but the unreasonable decision of the Foundation to claim
>>> copyright for the logos. The foundation did that because they thought that
>>> would make it easier to defend the brand. But that's just intermingling
>>> trademarks and copyright. Trademark protection does everything we need. No
>>> need for additional copyright protection. The Coca Cola logo is PD-old (and
>>> in many jurisdictions also PD-ineligible) and they have no problem defending
>>> their brand. Why should Wikimedia logos be any different?
>>>
>>> Just release the logos under a free license and the problem will be gone.
>>>       
>> Or just use common sense that it's silly for a Wikimedia project to say it's
>> not allowed to use a logo own by Wikimedia Foundation....
>>
>> KTC
>>     
>
> If this was the English Wikipedia, the response would be somewhere
> between "please do not be silly" and "Stop this or we will block you
> for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point ( [[WP:DISRUPT]] )".
>
> I don't know Swedish Wikipedia's local standards and policy - but as
> Dave Gerard and Ting say, this is at the very least silly.  We can't
> stop you from being silly, but it's not constructive in building an
> encyclopedia.  If you want to play legal games or fight intellectual
> property law reform fights, this may not be the project for you.
>   
It's amazing that Swedish Wikipedia is fighting tooth and nail to get
rid of the Wikipedia logo, while the English Wikipedia is having the
same battle over keeping the Goatse.cx image (which is receiving 800
hits a day from people receiving shock image links).

-- 
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

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