Talk:Trademark policy/Archives/2013

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

"help shape new policy"

Like so often - if your motherlanguage is not english, you have nearly no possibility to "help". It's an important thing for me, because I'm doing a lot of outreach work. But with this long and often technical texts, there's no possibility to coorperate. Maybe Coorperation is not really wanted from other regions of the world. It makes the things not easier... Marcus Cyron (talk) 00:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hallo Marcus, du kannst gerne auch auf Deutsch kommentieren! Der Entwurf ist in 6 verschiedene Sprachen inklusive Deutsch übersetzt worden und das Team wird Kommentare in allen Sprachen lesen - wie schon in der ersten Phase der Diskussion, als zB auf Französisch, Spanisch und Deutsch verfasste Diskussionsbeiträge gelesen und beantwortet wurden.
(English translation of the above: Hi Marcus, you are welcome to comment in German, too! The draft has been translated into 6 different languages including German, and the team will read comments in all languages - as it did in the in the first stage of the trademark discussion, where comments in e.g. French, Spanish and German were read and responded to.)
Grüße, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 00:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
And for us poor angloids, if the arabic/french/german/japanese/other talkpages bring up some insightful point, please do put a link to *that* talkpage discussion, into the relevant section here on *this* talkpage. Monolinguals can always use binging or googling for machine-translation, but those raw tools are a poor substitute for some multilingual human, acting as a bridge. Anyways, Marcus, your point is well-taken, and appreciate you were brave enough to make it. Keep on doing so, please, this is an important problem, not just for things like trademark-policy-discussions, but for the long-term viability of wikipedia, as a place that attracts and retains great contributors, no matter their native spoken-language traditions. 74.192.84.101 14:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikia

Hello. My username on Wikia is CalzoneManiac, but my account here is DudeWithAFeud. On several wikis on Wikpedia, I often copy and paste Wikipedia content to create high-quality pages, such as Clark County, Nevada on the U.S. Counties Wiki. I always put a Wikpedia sticker to show that the content is not mine and that it originates from the page I copied from. Can you give me any advice on how to work out the new rule for Wikia sites? DudeWithAFeud (talk) 00:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi DudeWithAFeud. Thanks for your comment. Looking at the page you pointed to, it looks like you're appropriately attributing to Wikipedia already. The English Wikipedia community has a similar template here to attribute Wikia content on Wikipedia. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
@DudeWithAFeud: Yes, to confirm what Anna says, if you use the Wikipedia name/logo to link to Wikipedia, then it is allowed under § 3.6.4 in the trademark policy. Thanks for the question! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

We have a long history of creating derivatives of the Community Logo. What is the status of existing derivatives? Are new derivatives allowed? John Vandenberg (talk) 09:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I have helped develop a lot of derivatives for a lot of purposes. I also would like clarification of how derivatives should be used. I would like them used freely, and I like the idea of registering use based on people's intent to document their activities and to use the marks properly even if derivatives are not WMF trademarks. I hope that this process does not just have to be about protecting the WMF, but can also be a system for encouraging people to use marks appropriately and connect to the rest of the Wikimedia community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for raising this! You should be free to create derivatives. To the extent that those derivatives are very similar to an existing trademark (so similar that someone may think it's the same mark), we ask that you only use those derivatives on the Wikimedia sites to avoid confusion.YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
People are already using these derivatives offline. How should these people proceed? Stop using them? Request permission from WMF, even for situations where they would be permitted to use the unmodified Community Logo without requesting permission? John Vandenberg (talk) 04:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
My sense - without having seen any of these offline uses - is that people are probably using derivatives that are unlikely to cause confusion and so do not need to do anything. But I cannot tell for sure without seeing specific examples of uses. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 05:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, wmpl:File:ULOTKA_ZJAZD_2008_1.png is a specific example we could use to aid discussion here. It is an offline part of wmpl:Konferencja Wikimedia Polska 2008, which is mentioned on Community Logo. Which part of the policy allows this? Could 'derivatives' please be explicitly mentioned in the policy/faq somewhere? John Vandenberg (talk) 01:12, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the example! This derivative mark is unlikely to cause confusion. On its own, it doesn’t look like the Community logo and therefore wouldn’t be covered by its trademark protection. We’ll prepare an FAQ to clarify this. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:20, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

With this change to the policy, my concerns about derivatives are allayed, and this section can be archived. Many thanks to the staff involved, and also User:Bluerasberry for categorising those images on Commons. John Vandenberg (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

photography question

Is it allowed to take photos containing the trademarks and sell the photos as art (e.g. fine art prints in an art gallery or printing the photo on a 3D sculture made with a 3D printer) or sell licenses for the photos to newspapers for editorial use? Apart from photos, can the trademarks be recreated with a 3D printer and used in installation art? How is the sell of commercial merchandise differentiated from the sale of artistic objects? Art objects in an art gallery, in which items can sell for thousands of dollars, regularly display trademarks (e.g. in a recent exhibition and sale, the artist was selling photos made within a supermarket, with the trademarks of hundreds of items visible in the large print). The policy proposes to allow artistic use of the trademarks which it classifies as non-commercial, but how the trademark owner (Wikimedia) would feel if the trademark was used artistically and the artist made lots of money? 3D printing is very popular in art galleries right now and I've seen works in which trademarks are recreated with 3D printers in some artistic way, these are often put in installation art pieces, for which the gallery visitors pay for entrance tickets, photos of the installation are sold, or used in advertisements for the show. Photography is also regularly sold as art, for example an art gallery may sell fine art prints for $5,000 - $40,000 if made by a good photographer, and sometimes such photographs do contain trademarks. Sometimes art galleries or the artist may also print the photo on other items such as t-shirts or even 3D scultures made with 3D printers (printed photos on scultures made with 3D printers is also becoming popular in avant-garde art galleries) and numbered copies of the sculture may be sold to collectors, so what if the photo on the sculture contains the trademark? How is the sale of art differentiated from the sale of commercial merchandise? Photos containing trademarks can also be sold as editorial photos to journalists and newspapers, e.g. a photographer may take a photo and then sell it to a newspaper or use it in a book which is sold. So, if a pohotographer takes a pic which contains the trademark and uses the pic as the cover of a book, would this be classified as commercial use or as non-commercial use? and would it be allowed without a license?

  • Could the trademarks also be used in paintings that are sold? Many paintings regularly feature trademarks and their value is often quite high in art galleries and museums. A good painting can fetch millions of dollars. For example, see Andy Warhol's interpretation of various commercial iterms containing trademarks. Would photographers taking photos of the painting, and the sale of such photos, also be okay without a license?
Interesting question, and the answer is: “it really depends.” If the use is fair use, an artist may use the marks in an art project. See FAQ 3.18. However, if the use of the trademark is not fair use and intentionally creates confusion by suggesting a false affiliation of the artist to the Wikimedia Foundation, it would not be permissible. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Using trademarks as a verb

Is it allowed to use the trademarks as a verb? We regularly say "wikipeding" or "wikipedize it". Could such a use of the trademark be used in a book, newspaper, blog post, in spoken speech etc? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cogiati (talk) 10:54, 19 November 2013

FAQ number 2.3 covers this one explicitly:
'The wordmarks should not be used as a noun (e.g. “a Wikipedia for street names”), a verb (“Let’s Wiktionary this”), or in the plural or possessive form (e.g. “Wikiversities” or “Wikiversity’s”).'

Hope that helps! Philippe (WMF) (talk) 11:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I can clearly see the WMF sending cease-and-desist letters to people who use the word Wikipedia as a verb. I think I recall a The Big Bang Theory actor use it quite recently, perhaps someone should inform them they won't be able to do that once the new policy comes into life. odder (talk) 11:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I think such use might perhaps fall under section 3.6.3 (artistic and other non-commercial use). Or Yana even licensed the use to the Big Bang Theory people. Don't laugh: WMF legal actually does a lot of licensing for TV shows. --Gnom (talk) 13:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The situation I am referring to happened during an interview (I can't find it right now), so I doubt this section would apply here. Good luck enforcing such a clause, though. odder (talk) 13:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Wouldn't that be fair use, as nominative use? I was under the impression that restrictions like this one only apply to uses that are licensed by the entity making them—hence why you don't see a ™ after "Wikipedia" in a newspaper article. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 15:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Oftentimes, this would be fair use and we would not try to do anything about. But sometimes it wouldn't be fair use even if the entity weren't using the marks under a license. For example, if someone was marketing their website as “a Wikipedia for street names,” they would be using a Wikimedia trademark to market their own independent product, which may not reflect our values and mission. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm A little confused as to why we want to disallow the use of "Wikipedia" as a verb (as in "I wikipedia the author of my favorite book"). Wikipedia is where a lot of people go to get information on the web thus it seems like a similar situation to google ("I google the author of my favorite book"). "I searched for/read up on the author on wikipedia" is more formal, but when you are using coloquial speech, it seems that Wikipedia or just Wiki'ed, in, for example a novel's dialogue, might sound more realistic. Could someone explain to me the reasoning behind this part of the policy. Edit: I forgot to sign --4.49.113.10 23:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I second this anonymous post. If you're only planning to disallow the use of the name Wikipedia as a noun (as @YWelinder didn't respond to the verb part I brought up), then why mentioning the other parts of speech at all? odder (talk) 17:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
We discourage the use of the Wikimedia trademarks as verbs because such a use could evolve in a way that weakens the connection in the public imagination between the mark and the Wikimedia projects. The danger is that the mark will become generic -- i.e. no longer a trademark. “Hoover(ing)” is an example of a former trademark that’s become generic in the United Kingdom because it is used synonymously with “vaccum(ing).” To reduce the risk that the the Wikimedia marks will be used interchangeably with “researched” or similar verbs, we discourage their use as verbs. Google’s trademark guidelines prohibit the use of “google” as a verb (as in “I google the author of my favorite book”) based on similar concerns. Of course, “wiki” is not a trademark. So you can use “wiki’ed” freely to mean “look up on Wikipedia” -- or anything else :) AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 20:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
And yet, people are using the word Wikipedia as a verb now, and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future. What will be your reaction to that? odder (talk) 22:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hello again odder, see my posts below... if the people verbifying the WMF marks are just individuals, chatting on the interwebs, the WMF need do nothing in most cases, because trademark-case-law does not require them to take action. However, if the "people" doing the verbifying are Legal Corporations In The State Of Delaware, which are publishing and advertising and in general *legally* propagating this verbified stuff, *then* trademark-law demands the WMF sue their asses.  :-)   Hope this helps; see also my discussion of the difference between the FAQ, versus the courtroom-legalese-trademark-policy. 74.192.84.101 15:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

@YWelinder (WMF): This is nonsense. "Wikipedia" is already a noun, as all proper nouns are nouns. "Wikiversities" is already a word to refer to multiple editions of Wikiversity. Unrelated, but just seeing this rule is making me consider whether I should even contribute to Wikimedia projects when the WMF tries to impose restrictions on usage like this... Anyway, another example: Many of "Wikiversity's" users are students in courses. "Let's Wiktionary this" is completely harmless. "A Wikipedia for x" is already misused unfortunately, but the vast majority use "a wiki for x". This is way too extreme, and you might lose an editor over this. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that genericization is a problem for us, especially on the verb front. Generally speaking, the risk with genericization is that it ceases to refer to a specific provider's product or service and comes to mean the whole class of product or service: e.g. kleenex for facial tissue, band-aid for adhesive bandage, xerox(ing) for photocopying, googling for using a search engine, and (in Britain) hoover for vacuum cleaner. The thing with all of this is that there are competitors to these products: there are bajillions (technical term) of manufacturers of facial tissue and adhesive bandages around the world, and more than just a few for photocopiers and vacuum cleaners; even with search engines, despite Google's domination of the market, there's still a few search engines around. On the other hand, the Wikimedia projects are generally one-of-a-kind, for good reason: they're free and open, so making a competitor on the same model would generally be pointless, and there's no profit to be had in making an alternative anyway even if it did sell ad space. This is especially true of Wikipedia, whose scale would make it a particularly daunting task. It's the classic case: why try to beat them and lose, when you can just join them and they're perfectly happy to have you?
Consider what it would mean for "Wikipedia" to turn into a verb. It would currently mean "look up on Wikipedia." What could it turn into? Well, at first stage of genericization, it could mean "look up on an online encyclopedia." Except that there aren't any others worth mentioning--all the "competition" is tiny, appealing mostly to either fanatics (e.g. Conservapedia) or the five people left who trust "regular" encyclopedias but don't have one at home and so use the online version. At the second stage, one supposes it could mean "look up online" or "look up in an encyclopedia," but for the former we have "google" and for the latter--well, who even looks stuff up in a print encyclopedia anymore? And if they did, what on Earth would they be doing saying they "wikipediaed", say, birds, in print Brittanica? And as for simply "researched" or "looked up"--why would anyone say that? "Researched" and "looked up" are perfectly good words, and much less unwieldy than "wikipediaed." Try it. It's a mouthful and kinda clunky. The other cases of genericization happened when the generic word for the thing/action was not well-established, and/or sounded overly technical or clunky. I mean, what's easier/more fun to say: "xerox" or "photocopy"? "Kleenex" or "facial tissue"? "Band-aid" or "adhesive bandage"? (So much Latin in that one!) "Google" or "search the Internet"? It ought to be obvious. Now consider: "Wikipediaed" or "researched"? I don't think we're at any risk of that word ever referring to anything other than using our largest Wikimedia project. Lockesdonkey (talk) 00:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I did hope that the shibboleth of genericization would not rear its ugly head. Diderot may have been hoist on that particular petard, but we, it seems likely, would not. Wikiepdia could once have been described as the Britannia of online encyclopaedias, or perhaps as the Rolls-Royce of reference sites. Neither usage makes the trade makes generic. There is a perfectly good alternative for a wiki, or for an encyclopedia. It is certainly true that other sites, deliberately or not, trade off the components of the brand name - Wikileaks, Wikia and Parkopedia come to mind. Parkopedia even describes itself as "Wikipedia for parking" - we could take issue with this statement, because it implies association with Wikipedia in some readings, but not, I think, for risk of genericity ("Like Wikipeida, for parking" would seem unexceptional).

Moreover there seems some confusion about plurals and possessives. One of Wikipedia's most compelling propositions is the presence of Wikipedias in many languages.

I would suggest that the actual target of the provision be addressed directly (bearing in mind that the provision is only addressed to licensees) "The trade marks shall not be used in a generic manner". Thus it is perfectly acceptable to say that one will "Wikipedia Raedwald" providing one is actually using (a) Wikipedia to do it.

Rich Farmbrough 01:52 20 November 2013 (GMT).

These are similar to my concerns above. PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Didn't the EFF have something to say on this topic related to the Ubuntu trademark troubles lately ? We might be wise to take that into account. TheDJ (talk) 08:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
As a former fellow at EFF and a proud card-carrying EFF member, I follow everything they write and certainly take it into account when writing this trademark policy. But I’m not sure how the Ubuntu debacle relates to the discussion in this thread. This policy and our trademark practice interpret fair use broadly to protect speech related activities that were at issue in that case. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Rich and PiRsquared, methinks the problem is "our hypercorp will help clients wikipediafy their knowledge into this proprietary locked-in software suite". There is a generic term already: wiki, wikify, et cetera. There is absolutely[citation needed] clearly{{w:OR}} the risk that verbing the WikipediA wordmark will genericize it, and wikipediafy will become a synonym for wikify, thus *all* our trademarks will become useless for protecting the five pillars and the content-licenses as definitive parts of what Wikipedia and the WMF are known for. Therefore, I take the hardline, and say that the "Wikipedia of parking lots" is trademark infringement. They can call themselves the "Wiki of parking lots" without any trouble, right? But unless all their content is licensed under CCBYSA, unless anybody can edit their project, and unless the website is advert-free-not-counting-WMF-begging-spam, calling that website the "Wikipedia of parking lots" is, legally speaking, Bad News for the WMF lawyers.
  See also my discussion of why-sometimes-nonsensical-legalese-can-be-pragmatically-necessary. That said, if the nutty case-law precedents of trademark-law permit the legalese to simply give a blanket "shall not be used in generic manner" then I'm in favor of simplifying the language that way. But I suspect the "you may not verbify WMF marks" language is prolly mandatory, if we want to minimize in-the-courtroom-type risks during enforcement lawsuits slash anti-genericization lawsuits. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 14:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please reply to my and Rich's concerns? I don't know what the Ubuntu debacle is, and I don't see how it relates to this one. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi PiRSquared17! I have deleted FAQ Section 2.8 in response to your concerns. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
"2.3 Can you give me examples of uses of the Wikimedia wordmarks that are not “proper names” or “adjectives”?
"The wordmarks should not be used as a noun (e.g. “a Wikipedia for street names”), a verb (“Let’s Wiktionary this”), or in the plural or possessive form (e.g. “Wikiversities” or “Wikiversity’s”)."
- Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 01:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for catching that, Amgine. I have deleted that section too now. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
You're very welcome. It's the evil Wiktionarian in me, reacting in a knee-jerk fashion to the POS restrictions. (See also: POS headers, if you're a word geek.) - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 02:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
FAQ section 2.8 is one of the least questionable sections. I see no reason to remove it. See my comment above, at 22:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC) and Rich's. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi PiRSquared17, I've looked at your comment at 22:48. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that this is addressed now that we deleted FAQ Sections 2.3 (which had a provision on plural form). And the policy already states that people can use the wordmarks as nouns. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks! I didn't notice the edit to /FAQ and the shift in numbering, so I thought you were removing a different section. Sorry. PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah, that explains it. I'm glad we were able to figure this out. And thanks for taking the time to thoroughly comment on the draft. It's really becoming better as a result of the consultation over the past two days. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm confused. Isn't the FAQ supposed to be "not a legal document", just something explaining the policy? If you just changed the FAQ, you still need to change the policy (unless the FAQ was false, or the policy is unclear to the point of meaning both A and ¬A). So, if you can link a specific diff to the policy that would be appreciated. --Nemo 23:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I think the FAQ is the written-but-not-legally-binding portion of the trademark policy, and the formal numbered portions are the legally-binding stuff that is used in court. Trademark law in notoriously nutty, unfortunately. There is very definitely a serious problem with some judge being able to destroy wikipedia trademarks, by 'proving' they are genericized. Yana is in the unenviable position of being forced to write the legalese-portion so that it complies with some pretty-dern-nonsensical legal precedents... which is why PiRsquared sees nonsense here. :-)   It is nonsense, but legal systems sometimes are. Anyways, your point is correct: changing the FAQ will only change the colloquial interpretation, and if push comes to shove and somebody is taken to court, *only* the legalese portion matters.
  That said, this is one case where the legalese is probably going to have to be nonsensical, however, and the legalese will have to explicitly state that sentences like "we will wikipediafy your corporate knowledge into our proprietary locked-in product suite" are flat-out infringing on the WMF's legal wordmark. Does that mean the WMF is gonna sue some hollywood celeb who doesn't stick to the exact legalese of the trademark? Well, it depends, right? On how close to crossing the case-law-precedent line-in-the-sand the celeb goes.
  For instance, while I was googling on this genericization problem, using www.DuckDuckGo.com as my search engine of choice, I didn't worry about genericizing the Google(tm) mark, because pffft. And they won't be suing me for that sentence, because case-law-precedent does not demand they do. But if I were to register www.googling.com and redirect it to DuckDuckGo, in exchange for a million bucks from the owners of that engine, *then* Google Corporation lawyers would sue me, in a heartbeat. WMF needs to have the similar sort of legalese, so they can act on a case-by-case basis, to protect the Wikipedia trademarks, and thereby protect Wikipedia herself. The problem here is not that the WMF is spouting nonsense; the problem here is that trademark-case-law itself is nonsensical. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 14:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I called it nonsense because it was nonsense. All the trsdemarks are proper nouns, so what does "should not be used as a noun" mean? Instead of using the genitive ("Wikipedia's best articles") do we need to use "of" ("Best articles of Wikipedia")? Anyway, Wikipedia is being used as a noun here, so it is verboten. There are hundreds of Wikipedias in various languages, of which the English and German ones are the largest. Oh wait, I forgot that the plural was banned. Anyway, I guess it's fixed now. PiRSquared17 (talk) 14:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Minor format issue

Oh! Here they go again, with the children's version of legal documents, big shiny colourful images... I thought. But well, this is the age of big shiny buttons, and it actually looks fine and readable. Just a note, the right hand side text of the second box ("Request a licence" etc.) overruns the box and the last line ("other uses") is outside of it while the previous ("on things that [...]") is exactly on top the orange border. Using Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16. By the way: "Place marks on [...] cakes [...] without selling them." Really? The WMF has been losing bazillions dollars with people selling WMF cakes? That is, do we really need to talk about cakes? :-) - Nabla (talk) 11:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The same goes for (a old) Firefox (3.6.13), except that Firefox shows a gradient (which Opera did not) - Nabla (talk) 14:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm so glad that you like the design! Thanks for letting us know about the issues with using different browsers. We'll make sure to account for that when we prepare the final draft. That draft will be presented on foundation wiki (along with all the other legal policies) and so will need to be adjusted to different browsers at that point. As for cakes, we just wanted to emphasize the wonderful things that community members do with the marks. If you think it's silly, we could just move it to the FAQ.  :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Nabla, the cakes/shirts/pamphlets issue is important. The language of 4.6 permits folks to sell cakes, of course, even without giving the WMF any kickback whatsoever, as long as the baker first requests a license via email. I'm planning an empire of cake-production-facilities, with WikipediA wordmarks on every single cake, so I'm trying to get the license-required-language loosened for several common cases, see talkpage sections above. "Let them have cake" as the famous lady once said.  :-)   p.s. As for the childish formatting, it is unfortunately just *tablet* formatting, and will become ever-more-common. I tend to think of it as the iPhonization of the ARPANET. Dern you, Steve Jobs, dern you to heck! — 74.192.84.101 15:10, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

WikiCon

I'm unfamiliar with the term Wiki Con, and it's a red link in the document. I doubt our trademark policy should have a red link, so we either need to create that page, fix the link to the correct page, or remove the link. I'm also curious if "wiki con" itself is a wordmark misuse because it implies that our general use of 'wiki' is directly related to Wikipedia. I thought we were trying to avoid using 'wiki' to mean 'wikipedia' or 'wikimedia'. (Great work on this draft, it's a huge improvement). Ocaasi (talk) 12:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

We greatly appreciate your support, Ocaasi! Thank you for your active and insightful participation! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 21:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
"Wikicon" is a term we crazy Germans came up with (we love meetups!), see de:Wikipedia:WikiCon. And you're definitely right about the "wiki" part. --Gnom (talk) 13:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ocaasi and Gnom. Red link is now blue; thanks. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Ocaasi, it seems like WM.DE's use of WikiCon is not a misuse of the wordmark because it's a term that's used on-wiki as the "proper name" (Section 2.1) of a "community-focused event" (Section 3.2), similar to the term WikiWomen. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Anna Koval (WMF), trademark-wise it's not a problem simply because "wiki" is not trademarked. --Gnom (talk) 08:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Gnom, as with many legal matters, there could be several reasons why the use of this term is not a problem. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Online production

In the moview and tv shows section, I'm concerned that "online production" is an overbroad term that could include any internet video, youtube sketch, web news, web parody... If we mean online movie or online tv show, I'd prefer we clearly define 'production' as such. Anything you produce is a production, so I'd prefer we used narrower phrasing or indicated our intent as I think the policy implies. (Thank you for your hard work on this). Ocaasi (talk) 12:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hm, where do you draw the line? There are Youtube channels that come very close to real TV, don't you think? I suppose the cases that you are thinking about are already covered by section 3.6.3 (artistic and other non-commercial use) and therefore require no license anyway. --Gnom (talk) 13:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
And Youtube profits from ads, as well as some Youtube accounts are 'partners' who receive a cut of ad revenue. I'd like more clariication on this one. Ocaasi (talk) 13:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ocaasi and Gnom. To be honest, narrowing the term “online production” is a tricky thing to do. The variety of works created and distributed on the internet is vast and attempting to enumerate every present and future (at least the “future” meant to be covered by this trademark policy draft) scenario is pretty much impossible. And as Gnom noted, it’s also difficult to draw lines within categories of online productions. An internet video could simply refer to Wikipedia in passing as it discusses tools of online collaboration or it could use the Wikipedia logos imply endorsement on unrelated commercial promotions. The former may be perfectly permissible while the latter would be misleading to the general public.
That said, many uses (such as web parodies or web news) within online productions will not require a license because the use is permitted under fair use or nominative use principles, as discussed in Sections 3.5 and 3.6 of the policy draft. This means that the nature of the use, rather than the medium, is more determinative in an permissible use analysis. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


"Fair use" is a U.S. concept, not worldwide

I follow the "call for comments on draft trademark policy" on the Wikipedia Kurier. The new draft policy begins with "YES please! You have a fair use right to..." My question: Does this policy apply worldwide including in countries that do not know any "fair use" rights? "Fair use" is a concept in U.S. law; the German language Wikipedia, for example, does not permit any media under a fair use claim. This policy may allow me to use marks under "fair use", but our own policies (e.g. those of de.wikipedia.org) forbid "fair use". --Neitram (talk) 12:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Neitram, you might confuse copyright and trademark here: The different rules on fair use images on the English and German Wikipedias deal with copyright (Urheberrecht). This license covers trademark (Markenrecht). But you are right, German trademark law is different from U.S. copyright as it does not have a concept such as fair use. (Instead, it uses different ideas that achieve very similar results.) But that should not affect your right to use the marks under the license because this license is governed by U.S. law. Yana will correct me if I'm wrong. Gruß, --Gnom (talk) 13:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Whenever I read "fair use", alarm bells ring in my head because the rules "Ein Fair Use von Bildern gibt es nur nach US-amerikanischem Recht; die Verwendung urheberrechtlich geschützter Bilder unter Fair Use ist in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia deshalb nicht erlaubt."; "Bilder, die in anderen Wikipedias als Fair Use gekennzeichnet sind, entsprechen nicht den Richtlinien der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia und können daher nicht verwendet werden." taught me: hands off of anything labeled "fair use"! --Neitram (talk) 16:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
You are absolutely correct about these differences in German and U.S. copyright law. However, this is not much of a problem in trademark law. --92.226.246.181 16:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I understand now that "copyright fair use" is different from "trademark fair use". But I still don't understand why you propose the wording "You have a fair use right", linking to the trademark fair use defense in U.S. law. It seems to me that the trademark fair use defense is a different thing from what you actually mean to say: a granted right (license) to use the mark for the listed purposes and in the listed ways. --Neitram (talk) 10:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
While I do not know the reasons for the WMF legal team's choices, my guess is they do not wish to grant that (or any) license in writing. Saying people have the right to use their mark - even in curtailed circumstances - may weaken their attempts to control the use of the mark at a later point in time. I believe it is for the same reason they are attempting to get people to stop verbing and adjectivising their marks (no more wikipedize!) - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 17:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your question, Neitram. We agree with Gnom on the fact that this may sound as a confusion of the fair use doctrine within copyright law, and what “fair use” could mean under a trademark law perspective. Regarding the wording, we stated that this was “fair use” because the policy cannot grant these existing rights under U.S. law -- it can only explain them. And we linked to the trademark fair use defense in US law article to show examples of the descriptive and nominate uses. But this policy is meant to apply internationally. These uses are permitted for users worldwide under the new policy regardless of how they are labelled. Thank you all for your interest and feedback! --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
But Fair use (U.S. trademark law), as I read it, is a defense that permits the use of a trademark a) as a culturally established word or symbol in other senses, and b) in nominative fair use. This fair use defense, by law, applies always and to all trademarks -- it does not need to be granted by the trademark owner and it can not be restricted by the trademark owner. Correct? If yes, then I feel this policy should be honest and say so, instead of making it sound by the wording as if this policy granted "fair use" rights to use Wikimedia's trademarks only in certain kinds of use as defined by the policy.
Secondly, I don't know much about these legal things but it's clear that "fair use" is a defense in United States trademark law. From Wikipedia: "Like any national law, trademark laws apply only in their applicable country or jurisdiction, a quality which is sometimes known as "territoriality"." So the question is, can the fair use defense be used only within the U.S., or can it be used internationally? It is widely known that in copyright law, the U.S. concept of fair use does not apply to international users in countries that do not know such a a concept. If the fair use defense in U.S. trademark law is similarly territorial, and if we can't avoid its use in this policy, we might want to point out this territorial limitation explicitly. And if it is territorial but not in practice because practically all jurisdictions worldwide have a similar concept in their trademark laws, we might want give this information too so that it becomes clear to the international reader. --Neitram (talk) 13:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Hello @Neitram: Both of your points are correct. In the U.S. and some other jurisdictions, fair use is allowed by law (and so we cannot restrict it). However, we phrase the policy as granting permission, to maximize compatibility with other jurisdictions and allow fair use and nominative use to the broadest extent possible. If a jurisdiction has a less-permissive type of fair use or nominative use, you may always use the marks as described in this policy. In practice, nominative use is more likely to be applicable than fair use, which is why the policy explains nominative use in detail. Is there anything we can do to make this point clearer in the policy? Thanks for your time and feedback, it's very much appreciated. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to change "YES please! You have a fair use right to use marks to" to: "YES please! This policy grants you the right to use marks to". This way it would be clear that this policy grants a usage right worldwide. By connecting the usage permission we want to give to "link target: fair use in U.S. trademark law", I feel we do not extend but narrow it. Additionally you could add a separate line saying something like "Note: In U.S. trademark law, the concept of fair use allows you to use any trademark as long as your usage fulfils the conditions of fair use. This policy can not restrict this, and exists to extend usage permission to jurisdictions that have a less-permissive type of fair use." --Neitram (talk) 14:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Another benefit to avoiding the phrase "fair use" is that even the USA statutory definition of "fair use" can change... and if it becomes more restrictive, we don't therefore want *our* trademark policy to also become more restrictive. Or is this wrong, and we *do* want to explicitly follow whatever the courts define as 'fair use' in whatever country is being discussed? 74.192.84.101 16:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 Hello Neitram and 74: We changed the summary based on your suggestion, and we also added an FAQ item to provide further clarification:

3.12 What does fair use mean?

In U.S. trademark law, the concept of fair use allows you to use any trademark as long as your usage fulfills certain conditions. This policy cannot restrict your fair use rights. We added Sections 3.5 and 3.6 to make your rights easier to understand.

For jurisdictions that do not recognize fair and nominative use as set out under U.S. law, these sections simply provide permission to do this.

Is this clear enough? Thanks again for your suggestions! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thank you very much. --Neitram (talk) 12:18, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
May I suggest removing 'simply'? it then assertively gives permission. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 17:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
@Amgine: Yes, we can do that. It's now updated per your suggestion. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Community vs. Public (editathon vs. hackathon and GLAM)

I'm a bit unclear on the distinction between editathons and hackathons and public events. You focus on whether the event is geared towards members of our 'community' to justify license-free editathons, but you also require licensing for public events. This leaves me befuddled. An editathon is often geared towards attracting new editors, who are not (yet) members of our community. At the same time, an editathon is also a public event. I get the sense that the license requirements for public events in section 4 need to better distinguish why they don't include editathons; or editathons need to be more specifically rationalized in section 3. I'm also confused about why GLAM events need licensing for a GLAM editathon. Yes, it involves another institution, but that's just a question of venue. If I hold an editathon at a museum, how is that materially different than holding an editathon at a public library--why does one not require licensing but the other does not, or maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning of 'GLAM event'. Lastly, your definition of hackathon doesn't clearly distinguish it from an editathon, so I'm left wondering why hackathons require a license. You say, "This provision applies to hackathons where people meet to work on Wikimedia projects together." Clearly, an editathon involves working on Wikimedia projects together. To be honest, so would Susie and Bobby getting together at starbucks to improve a stub article. I'd prefer you much more clearly explain why hackathons are distinct from editathons, or perhaps reconsider entirely if they actually are. (I like the visual design of this document, it's very approachable and easy to read) Ocaasi (talk) 12:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking about this also - GLAM is given special attention over other kinds of events, and I think that things like the education program, political meetups, tech meetups, and science meetups are increasingly deserving of attention comparable to GLAM. Also I am confused about the event definitions and payment discussions. To attend a meeting at a coffeehouse store policy is almost always to require visitors to buy a cup of coffee, and if admission to a coffeehouse meetup has a price then I wonder why special rules are needed for a thrifty university conference which charges a small attendees fee. Elsewhere there are also separate policies for conferences for Wikipedia community members as compared to non-members. Ideally I wish that most meetups were mostly non-community members. I am seeing the same things as Ocaasi - a lot could be clarified with standardized language and definitions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Bluerasberry that there are many different types of projects and meetings that are not explicitly covered here. But many (if not all!) of the ones that I can think of fall under the "Community-focused events" and "Outreach and recruiting new editors" sections and therefore require no license. Ocaasi is definitely right that this needs some clarification. Most of all, we should put someting in section 4.3 to explain that this only means "public events and conferences that are not community or outreach-related". So section 4.3 would only cover very few cases. --Gnom (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Gnom and Ocaasi! Thanks for clarifying section 4.3. We'll tweak that language to make it clearer. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for this

I am really happy with the drafts of all these pages, this policy, and this discussion. This seems like what I wanted and in any case is an awesome attempt to respond to community concerns. Thanks to all who organized this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Blue Rasberry! It is really encouraging to hear after working on this draft for months.  :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
BlueRasberry, not sure where *you* learned to negotiate, but *I'm* not thanking them until I get what I want, see w:WP:PONY for details.  :-)   I deserve a pony! I earned it! Waaaah! — 74.192.84.101 16:17, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

List

Is there a list of all the trademarks this would apply to? --MF-W 15:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes! Section 1.1 of the draft links to this page, where you should find all the trademarks. Gruß, --Gnom (talk) 15:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Brilliant; I did not manage to spot this in the vastness of the page. --MF-W 17:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Same here. In the banner were a lot of logos unknown to me, which led me to the same question. Linked page explain them. Thanks ! --Wikyvema (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

and/or

Just a minor thing but very meaningful: please make sure in lists of requirements whether they are *and* or *or* lists. Specifically, this is unclear in the non-legal description "2. Outside the Wikimedia sites when you:". Effeietsanders (talk) 16:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Effeietsanders! I’ll review the policy again to make sure that we are clear about using “and” and “or” for different requirements.
We don’t use “and” and “or” in the summary because it’s intended as an overview and doesn’t set out any requirements. We’ve tried to avoid any extra words in the summary so that people can quickly find a relevant provision and click a link to read more in the policy. But I’m happy to be convinced otherwise.  :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Not using and or or in that summary actually makes it more confusing to me :) It is unclear to me whether all conditions have to be fulfilled or either of them. There are of course more ways to accomplish that, but currently at least to me clearity is missing. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Point taken. Let's think about how we can make it clearer. :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Trademark symbol

I know this is a returning topic, but it would be unfair not to bring this up. "2.2 Notice or trademark symbol" specifies, like the visual guidelines, that the (R) or TM should be added to the logo's. Imho, this is quite unrealistic. Over here (Netherlands, Europe) it usually just makes you look silly. It is stating the obvious and gives a commercial feeling to the logo. In practice, it gets left out all the time because it is unpractical, ugly and silly - and I don't see this changing.

I know the current text specifies 'When reasonable' so probably most people acting in good fair will just assume it is unreasonable in their geography. Maybe it is good to point out when you *really* want to enforce this, and stick to that? Effeietsanders (talk) 16:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Effeietsanders. Thanks for your comment. We know that, under Section 2.2, our community members will interpret reasonableness in good faith according to local customs and norms. This trademark policy applies also to non-community members, where we are likely to be stricter in its construction. Trying to anticipate the various fact scenarios where “enforcement” would be appropriate in the following years would be difficult and render this section too detailed, in my opinion. But, frankly, I cannot imagine now a scenario where we would actively "enforce" against any community member under this provision. We may help guide people in a helpful way, but we expect everyone to work in good faith on this. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the helpful pointer. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Legal document

Where does the 'not a legal document' end? Current layout suggests to me the whole document is not the legal document. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Good point. We need to make that clearer. The legal texts starts in the black box, where it says “trademark policy.” How about if we state “End of the summary” right before the black box? YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
It's a curious disclaimer, a user will want to know "can I rely on this" - perhaps what we want to say here is that "this is a non-binding summary only, the policy proper trumps the summary in case of conflict." But this begs a number of questions:
  • Can I rely on the summary, or is it just an aide memoire?
  • If I can rely on the summary, why have a more detailed document?
  • If the documents conflict, where do they conflict and can we repair this?
Rich Farmbrough 18:35 19 November 2013 (GMT).
Hi Rich! Thanks for asking for clarification on this. The summary and the policy should not conflict, but there are more details in the policy that mean that you can’t rely on the summary only. That’s why I flag that the "summary is not a legal document.” But I can say that it's “non-binding” instead if that’s better. I'm aiming for a statement that non-native speakers would easily understand. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
That does improve the clarity. If the summary refers to the comprehensive document in the appropriate places, we may not even need this disclaimer. Rich Farmbrough 19:49 19 November 2013 (GMT).
You could perhaps treat it as a translation, and state that in case of conflicting language, the legal document always applies? This clearly states that the intention is to summarize it as good as possible. Also, if you link to the first section of the legal document with the word 'legal document' that would probably clarify that that is the point where it starts. Effeietsanders (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
That’s a good idea. How about if I change the statement like this:
“This summary is not part of the trademark policy. It’s meant to help you find the relevant provision that governs your use.”
That will also address your first question about where the summary ends. What do you think? Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Would also suggest that the FAQ be clearly distinct, and clearly marked as going *beyond* the legalese... without thereby later *limiting* the use of legalese (and only legalese) in any hypothetical legal proceedings. The legalese is quite brief, and well-written... it almost sounds human!  :-)   Suggest a thick dark black border around the actually-legally-binding portions, and maybe a different fontface. 74.192.84.101 16:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi 74! The FAQ will appear on a separate page in the final version. It was just presented on the same page here to make the community review easier. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:45, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Allow use in critic sites

Please allow use in Wikipedia critic sites.InSANITYreTURN (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that implied with trademark law around the world ? Are we aware of any country where it would not be allowed this way ? TheDJ (talk) 19:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Nominative use is allowed explicitly (Section 3.6). Rich Farmbrough 19:43 19 November 2013 (GMT).
So, I can use it, nice. Never mind Wikipediocracy, my critic site will be much more, grand!InSANITYreTURN (talk) 20:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Grand! Rich Farmbrough 20:45 19 November 2013 (GMT).
There are limits of course, a satiric spoof site at an almost identical URL and look and feel, might cause confusion for the 'general public'. That's where that line would be. My point was that a use in itself is not a violation. It's the way you use a trademark that determines if it is legal or not. And critical commentary in itself is not enough reason to violate a trademark. A critical commentary on a website that might trick users into thinking it is the original Wiki(pedia) might be a a usage that could violate the trademark (not a layer here, so i'm careful with my interpretation). TheDJ (talk) 08:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi InSANITYreTURN, TheDJ, and Rich Farmbrough. As Rich noted, use in critic sites is permitted under Section 3.6 of the policy draft. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Copyright

All of the restrictions on use contained in this policy can be grounded in trademark law. However, the file description pages for the Wikipedia logo, as well as several other logos, indicate that the logos are © the Foundation, and not freely licensed copyright-wise. It would be helpful, therefore, to know:

  • if the proposed policy, if/when implemented, will change that, and
  • if not, what is the purpose of the Foundation's claim to restrictive copyright protection, as well as trademark protection?

Phillipedison1891 (talk) 20:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that retaining copyright, where it subsists, provides additional protection against misuse of the marks. Copyright protection, at least in theory, is geographically almost universal. It would be sensible for the document to provide copyright release on the same terms as trademark license. Rich Farmbrough 20:34 19 November 2013 (GMT).
The trademark policy will not change the copyright status of our logos. But I’m working on changing their copyright status to CC BY-SA or a similar free license. I’ve started this with the new Wikivoyage logo. The other logos are a little bit more complicated for historic reasons, but we’re working on it.  :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The community logo is, of course, PD. Rich Farmbrough 01:26 20 November 2013 (GMT).
And although I know I'm stirring a hornet's nest here... sorry... anything that is public domain can be later copyrighted, under CCBYSA, or even under totally-proprietary traditional copyright terms, as long as the new owners of the "new" logo make some contributions that change the logo, even if ever-so-slightly. As I understand it, the point of trademarking the RGB-globe-logo is at least partly *because* it is PD under copyright-law. I do not yet really understand the problem deeply enough to be for-RGB-globe-trademarking, or alternatively against-RGB-globe-trademarking, but it is important to recognize which marks are under which copyright-status. There is a page over here, which could list that information, but does not at the moment -- https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks -- does somebody here have the necessary access, and knowledge about the history? I realize you can click on each logo, and read the licensing-section thereof. p.s. The logo for the Wikimedia Incubator gives off a distinctly eye-of-sauron vibe. Wonder if that was intentional.  :-)   That particular file is full-bore copyright,[1] btw, not GFDL or similar. By contrast, the meta-wiki logo is simultaneously[2] public-domain-copyright *and* registered-trademark-of-the-WMF. — 74.192.84.101 16:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Verb

"I'll just Wikipedia that... hmm looks like it was Egfrith." Ok abuse of the English language, arguably, like the infamous "Mouse that icon!" or nearer to home "Googling" ... But I'm not sure we should be discouraging it as policy, and certainly I hope not from a misplaced sense that the traded mark will become generic. Rich Farmbrough 20:39 19 November 2013 (GMT).

wikt:Wikipedia#Verb PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
This topic is also being discussed here on this page. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Trade dress and the MediaWiki interface

"trade dress is the design of a website or article that identifies the source of the website or online material. Think of it as the 'look and feel' of a site"

How is the trade dress particular to Wikimedia Foundation projects to be distinguished from the default skinning of MediaWiki, which is used by many other wikis? Will they have to change their appearance to avoid infringement (in countries where that's taken more seriously than U.S. law takes it, at least?) Daniel Case (talk) 00:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Daniel, we don't consider the mere use of the MediaWiki software to be a trade dress violation. Generally, it is fine to use the MediaWiki software as long as you don't combine it with one of our logos or something that is confusingly similar to them. You can read more about that in FAQ Section 5.3. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Hm, presumably the "Powered by Mediawiki" button needs a little thinking about. (I have a feeling the sunflower was the default logo on the first Wiki I installed, but that may have been becasue it was the only graphic on the system.)
~~
"Powered by MediaWiki" would generally be a nominative use of the logo to describe that the wiki is powered by MediaWiki, so that should also be fine. It's an excellent question. I'll add it to the FAQ section to clarify that. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Looks pretty good to me

I'm only a very occasional editor here on Wiki, but I have a lot of interest in supporting the site. I think these are positive changes, and the communication of them is pretty clear and effective too.--Spud of Doom (talk) 07:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, Spud of Doom. I'm sure the legal team appreciates it. :) -Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Domain names

This discussion was copied from Talk:Trademark practices discussion.

The current policy states that "If you want to include all or part of a Wikimedia trademark in a domain name, you have to receive written permission from the Wikimedia Foundation." But the Foundation appears to have been unwilling to enforce this legally in at least the case of the domain name wikipediaart.org. A policy that is (or can be) only selectively enforced seems undesirable.

A blog posting by a representative of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, with regard to wikipediaarts.org, said "There is no trademark or cybersquatting issue here. First, the site is entirely noncommercial, which puts it beyond the reach of U.S. trademark law. ... Moreover, even if U.S. trademark laws somehow reached this noncommercial activity, the artists’ use of the mark is an obvious fair use. ... The disputed site ... does not use any more of the Wikipedia mark than need be; for example, it doesn’t even use the Wikipedia logo. Simply put, the site does not purport to be, nor does it look anything like, Wikipedia and the artists have done nothing to suggest Wikipedia endorses their work."

The relevant case law seems to be Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Kremer. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.)

If the EFF statement above is true, then the current policy seems very problematical. Perhaps something like this would be better, though even that may still be an overreach, in light of Bosley:

"If you want to include all or part of a Wikimedia trademark in a domain name, you should contact the Wikimedia Foundation to find out whether it objects. People naturally associate domain names with organizations whose names sound similar. Any use of a Wikimedia trademark in a domain name, by other than the Wikimedia Foundation, must not confuse consumers into thinking that the domain is owned by or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation."

John Broughton (talk) 18:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this question. The EFF blog post touched upon two issues that we would like to clarify by updating the trademark policy: (1) how project names can be used in domain names (see the next thread below); and (2) what uses of our marks constitute fair use. In certain cases, trademark rights cannot be enforced because of fair use. This may look like inconsistent enforcement. But we may be able to avoid this appearance by clarifying what uses would constitute fair use. As I’ve mentioned above, we hope to include more specific examples of fair use in our trademark policy and FAQs. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I own several domains that include full Wikimedia trademarks in their names, as I bought them to prevent cybersquatting (and have paid for them from my own pocket). I have never asked the WMF for permission to do so, nor am I willing to take part in any authorisation process. The domains redirect to their respective projects, and I'm not planning to use them for any type of activity; I'm also willing to cover their costs until I'm not. Seeing that the trademark policy specifically requires people like me to receive written permission from the WMF to be able to buy such domains, what is the Foundation's position on the matter? (Note: I personally know several other volunteers who own domains with Wikimedia trademarks in their names, so I think it's a bigger issue than just an individual user.) odder (talk) 14:47, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
@YWelinder: given that the new draft trademark policy imposes a requirement to ask for permission from the WMF every time I recover a cyber-squatted domain, I would really like to hear an answer to this. Thanks, odder (talk) 08:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi odder. We appreciate your recovering cyber-squatted domain names for the Wikimedia community. Assuming your domain names are not fair use, we would prefer that you transfer the domain names to us as a custodian for the community (and we would reimburse expenses). If those domain names are in the Wikimedia portfolio held at WMF, we can better defend the Wikimedia trademarks against third-party attacks or misuses, including cybersquatters with similar domain names. We often launch successfully WIPO challenges against improper use by individuals or firms outside our community, and it helps to have a complete portfolio of domain names as a point of reference in arguing our right to cybersquatted domain names. Also we have a top firm comprehensively monitoring misuse of domain names in our portfolio on the web. That same firm ensures that the domain names in our portfolio are properly renewed to ensure against any lapses that could allow cybersquatters to steal the domain name. That said, with any provision in the trademark policy, we will exercise good judgment and assume good faith in its application and enforcement. So, as an active community member, if your domains faithfully redirect to the Wikimedia sites without advertisement or any other misuse, I’m not going to worry about it too much at this time. There are more important priorities for us. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your answer, Geoff, it's very reassuring. I doubt that any of those domains would qualify as fair use; I avoid mentioning their existence, and they do not contain any content, and are mere redirects to appropriate Wikimedia projects. Also, thank you for such a detailed answer, it's appreciated. I will consider donating the domains to the Foundation, and I might get back to you via e-mail soon. odder (talk) 19:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Update translations

About a week ago I corrected some mistakes in the Hungarian translation of the banner, but it is still not updated (for me). How does it works? Should I write a message about corrections to somebody? Thanks in advance! Samat (talk) 20:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Fixed, but the WMF should probably be doing this (Tbayer (WMF)?). PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks PiRSquared17, I've been creating banner pages as I can, the workflow is broken right now because of a bug in the translation extension (that won't let you publish changes) that is being worked on (as far as I understand as bugzilla:53748 ). Without that workflow it can be very difficult to tell when a translation needs to be updated (and when it's been reviewed) so I appreciate your help and anyone who notices it as well as a heads up if something is taking too long. I think Philippe will be keeping an eye on it as well. Jalexander--WMF 21:04, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
You can add &tux=0 for now to fix it. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your help! Samat (talk) 23:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

This edit, made by anonymous user @76.14.75.240, which raised edit requirements for free use of the Community Logo from 20 to 300 edits, is absolutely scandalous. I can only hope this view is not shared by the Foundation, and would like to urge any staff member to revert the edit. odder (talk) 11:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry @Odder:, but you are misreading the diff. The ip removed the "20 edits during the past year" but leaved the "300 edits across all projects". This edit is losening the requirements, not raising them. Pleclown (talk) 15:04, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh, right. Thanks, @Pleclown; I definitely misread the diff. I think I might have compared it to someone's suggestion to have 1 edit in total as a requirement, and hence my comment. Thanks for clearing up the confusion. odder (talk) 16:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

typo's

on pg: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trademark_policy in box to r of 'YES please!', error of omission:

<Use this mark to (...?) as an active Wikimedian>

would edit myself, but not sure what verb intended (perhaps to 'act' as an active Wikimedian? ) --‎Nickholbrook 18:58, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch, Nickholbrook! Krinkle just fixed it. :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, NO

I think something should be added as to suggest one could not use it for personal gain or commercial use. Jacedc (talk) 19:02, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jacedc, thanks for your input! The "Sorry, NO" section in the summary doesn't include prohibition on use for personal gain or commercial use because they are not currently prohibited by the policy draft. Do you think that such uses should always be prohibited? The current draft specifies some instances when these uses are allowed (e.g. Sections 4.3 - 4.6), but requires them to be reviewed on a case by case basis to make sure that the commercial use is not inconsistent with the Wikimedia mission? YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Mhm. Okay, so it is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Seems fair enough. :) Jacedc (talk) 16:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

possible amendments to the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act

There's been talk of amending the ACPA, apparently in response to ICANN's generic top-level domain (gTLD) plans (which could potentially allow the registration of, for example, wikipedia.sucks). I presume the WMF would support such legislation given the strong statements I have heard about the importance of protecting trademark but, if so, what would be the response to those who claim that this would be 'SOPA For Trademarks'? Obviously it would seem hypocritical to support "SOPA for Trademarks" given this project's history. Is "SOPA for Trademarks" misleading? Would the WMF not support a strengthening of ACPA?--Brian Dell (talk) 03:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Brian, I don't believe that ACPA needs to be expanded and I doubt that we would support it. Generally, we only support the level of trademark protection necessary to safeguard the Wikimedia projects. A domain like wikipedia.sucks should not be a problem because most users would probably realize that it's not a WMF domain given that it would criticize Wikipedia. And we would not support any trademark law that infringes upon freedom of speech. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Would be curious to hear more wikipedians chime in to defend freedom (yay), and explain whether ACPA is or is not conducive to freedom (I've never heard of it), but maybe the political aspect is off-topic here. Perhaps w:Talk:Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act where we can improve the ACPA article based on expert advice? p.s. It says right at the top of the trademark policy that you can found wikipediaSucksDotCom ... you just have to "truthfully describe a Wikimedia site" and also to "accurately report" just how it specifically sucks.  :-)   Hope this helps! — 74.192.84.101 14:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments by Shell

  • 4.3 Events and conferences / 4.4 Publications / 4.5 Movies & TV shows These sections have collapsed info about what to include when requesting permission. Why do they have different shades of gray?
  • 6.1 Reporting misuse: You should have a FAQ link.
  • 7.2 Translation of the trademark policy: "If some term in a translation ... is inconsistent..." You could probably remove "some term in". Either way, I think the language used in the Privacy Policy sounds better: "Please note that in the event of any differences in meaning or interpretation between the original English version of this Privacy Policy and a translation, the original English version takes precedence."
    • The Privacy Policy language is more formal, so I revised the language to be consistent with the tone of the trademark policy.
If there is any differences in meaning between the original English version of this trademark policy and a translation, you should follow the original English version.
Is this clearer? Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
  • General:
    • Choose either “ and ” or " and "
    • Good summary
    • Throughout the text there are lots of links explaining terms. That's useful.
    • Somebody should go through the links to avoid redirects. Even though it won't affect the reader, it's cleaner that way.
    • Consistently link to content projects: I've seen links on the format [w:en:] and [wikipedia:], [wikt:]
    • Good that you have "Back to" links in the FAQ.
    • The icons are good enough (and much better than nothing). Since they are all released under CC0, would it be possible to suppress the link when used in the section heading?
    • Overall, I think this trademark policy balances the community's interests in both protection and free use. Also, it's well-written and pretty easy to understand.
    • [added] The policy is a bit cluttered, at least for someone like me who has read the whole thing and scrolls back and forth through it. It has many distinct styles:
      1. Links to translations in the top
      2. The short summary: 3 colors, 5 font styles (colored heading; community mark text; colored big body text for "YES please"; black big body text for "YES, but first" and "Sorry, NO"; small black bulleted text), 2 link styles (normal links, which come in all fonts; dotted link to "Visual Identity Guidelines") and two list types (minibullets, numbered)
      3. Trademark policy "ToC" (symbols in a row)
      4. Trademark policy introduction (like summary, has gradient border)
      5. Trademark policy text (headings with icons (sometimes colored), indented, sub-headings to the left, prominent links to FAQ)
      6. Section 4.3-4.5: collapsible content in different colors
      7. Purpose (centered heading not used elsewhere, gray dotted border, the only part that has complete-sentence headings (except for "The purpose of our trademark policy"), subheadings are listed as "a." and "b." instead of numbered; no dotted line between sections)
      8. FAQ (solid border, has section "0" (understandable, but still))
      9. FAQ 3.22 has a very specially formatted link to Commons
      10. Everything that the Vector theme adds: sidebar, top links, H1, search, category, footer
    • Do you see that the page has too many styles? You'd need a designer to make a perfect design, but I have a few simple suggestions:
      • Consistently number headings: "3." vs. "3"; "3.a" vs. "3.1"
      • The short summary: Community mark info: use the same font-size/boldness as some other text
      • Purpose: Use the same-style border as other sections (maybe another color?), left-align the heading, add dotted lines between sections
    • //Shell 11:10, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi again, Shell! To respond to a few things from your list: There is nothing we can do about the way translation links look, nor can we change or remove vector theme elements. We don't design to "fit" those because they may change at any time completely separately from anything on the pages.
Regarding the different look for the different sections, this is also intentional to make it visually clear that you are reading a different section. If you clicked a link and are suddenly in the FAQ and not the policy, I want that to be obvious.
We have made these changes per your suggestion (they might not be obvious yet as they need to get through the translation tool):
  1. In the summary: We made the body text all black and changed the size of the text referring to the community logo.
  2. We made all of the collapse boxes the same color.
  3. We revised the infobox link to commons into a regular text link to make it consistent with other links.
  4. We changed the list style of the purpose document.
Thank you for your continued help! heather walls (talk) 00:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
@Heatherawalls: I realize that you can't change the look of Vector or the translation links, but since a reader will see those too the page still has more clutter (of course one of the main goals of Vector was to keep the "chrome" to a bare minimum - in order to give the content more attention). Because Vector+translation links exist, you have a greater requirement to not make the content overly cluttered.
That said, I understand that the page will ultimately be split into three, and along with the changes you have made, I think the page will be sufficiently uncluttered.
Note: There is still a Commons infobox in FAQ 3.19 "What kind of stuff can I make?". //Shell 11:48, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Skalman,
Thank you for the additional comments on the design. Really helpful! heather walls and I will talk about how we can implement this.
One thing I that should probably flag is that both the FAQ and the Purpose will appear on separate pages in the final version. We just included them on one page now to make it easier to discuss them together and we created a distinct design for the Purpose to make it clear that it is a completely different document. So the final version (where this text will be split up over three different pages) will probably be far less cluttered. Having said that, we can still work on more consistency across the fonts and the colors. We trying to make the design of this policy user-friendly and really appreciate your help with that. We did a blog post about the design process for the policy, in case you are curious about how it came about. :)
Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, the differences in style won't matter as much if they're on separate pages. The short summary should still use fewer styles though. Overall you've made the policy quite approachable. :-) //Shell 11:08, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Whoa. That was a long read! //Shell 11:49, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again, Shell! We appreciate all your time reviewing the policy. We are still working on your suggestions, but we will respond above inline. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I've responded inline to your comments. I've also added a comment about the styling of the policy. //Shell 11:10, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


Wikipetan

en:Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan

Is Wikipetan a trademark of the Foundation? (I mean the character) — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cogiati (talk)

She is not. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 11:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
… yet. odder (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

We wouldn't trademark Wikipetan. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Right! No need to, the puzzle tile is already trademarked and there isn't real need to trademark this mark which includes it as substantial element, right? --Nemo 22:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
For those of you playing along at home, wikipe-tan is a GFDL-licensed creation, which uses a generic puzzle-piece, and a generic CJK glyph, and a generic shade of grey, as you can see in the image to the right. Nemo and odder and various other folks are unhappy about something else, which is a Public-Domain-licensed creation, the RGB-community-globe-thing, which you can see in the top left corner of this website you are reading this moment. Methinks that the reason the RBG-community-globe-dingus *was* trademarked, will remain controversial... but methinks also that Wikipe-tan is reasonably safe from getting sucked into the gaping horrendous maw of the WMF lawyers.  :-)   Sure, there are some puzzle-pieces... but the cute little anime-girl is the main part of the photo. Sure, various WMF trademarks *also* use the puzzle pieces, and the trade-dress of wikipe-tan is reasonably close, and of course her *name* is unfortunately borderline-infringing. But it still seems astronomically unlikely, on balance, that WMF will ever need to trademark wikipe-tan's image... though there is some possibility that they will somebody need to push for her to be given a less-borderline-name, such as wiki-ping-tan of the GNU clan. Actually, that has a nice ring to it; does she have the superpower of pre-cognitive omniscience? Cause that would be fitting.
  Seriously, though, can some lawyer-or-close-enough-to-count-person please confirm that my analysis of the nowhere-near-infringing nature of the Wikipe-tan image, and the borderline-but-still-prolly-safe filename? But methinks the key naming-difference is usage-in-practice: the RGB-globe-thing *is* used as a front-line symbol of the WMF, whereas wikipe-tan is not used as the front-line symbol for *anything* at present, correct? If some website were to pop up, and use Wikipe-tan as their logo, and register Wikipetan.org, and try to trademark all words containing "Wikipe" as their wordmarks, methinks WMF lawyers would prolly complain. Whereas, if this hypothetical website used the exact same logo, but called it wiki-ping-tan, and used WikiPingTan.com for their domain, and trademarked PingTan, nobody would care. HTH. 74.192.84.101 15:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
The Community logo is just that -- the community logo. Not the WMF logo. PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

((ArchivingSoon)) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 02:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I for one would like a brief clarification, and have thus removed Philippe's template. Can I register www.wikipetan.com , and use the imagefile shown here as my logo (including the puzzle-pieces), plus trademark the name "Wikipe-tan" of the character (and possibly trademark the logo-as-an-imagefile also)? Methinks the answers are no; the marks are Too Similar to existing wikipedia WMF-owned marks.
  Question two: if in 2014 there *is* a new WMF-sponsored site, which does begin to use the Wikipe-tan imagefile as their logo, in 2015 will the WMF trademark the Wikipe-tan logo? Methinks the answer is yes, the relevant quote being when DRenaud said "...the Wikipedia logo should only be used on the original Wikipedia... Likewise, the Community logo should not be used as a logo on [any other website] because that will make it [the other website] look like Meta." In other words, the community-logo was public domain, for use by anyone, until the WMF decided to be one of the "anyone" group.
  Now, obviously, it could have been far worse -- maybe $hypercorp could have done the same thing! So having the WMF protect the mark, is preferable (to me anyhow) as the least-bad-alternative. And maybe, the WMF will end up trademarking it, and then purposely genericizing it, should "the community" so will, for use by all and sundry, without the need to worry about $hypercorp. But my question is, in particular, about the future use of logos which are not current WMF marks, and are not yet used widely on WMF-sponsored projects. Can the WMF trademark Wikipe-tan, someday, as a name and/or as a logo, should she become widely used in that way? If so, what steps need be taken to prevent both $hypercorp and also WMF from restricting the Wikipe-tan name (to conceivably include the step of renaming), and/or restricting the Wikipe-tan imagefile (to conceivably include the step of nixing the puzzle-pieces). Thanks. 74.192.84.101 04:39, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
  p.s. JVargas partially answers this, saying to use CC-NC, down below -- Talk:Trademark_policy#PD_as_a_trademark -- but the Wikipe-tan license is not CC-NC methinks, so this case seems distinct. 74.192.84.101 04:46, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi 74! There is no trademark registration for the Wikipe-tan’s puzzle piece hair clip, or for her name. Only the Wikipedia puzzle globe is officially trademarked, so the Wikipe-tan image doesn’t actually make use of a Wikimedia registered mark. WMF does have an unregistered trademark in the puzzle icon, but Wikipe-tan’s hair clips are not sufficiently similar, particularly given that they only make up a small portion of the image. So using her image would not violate WMF trademarks. In response to your second question, after hearing from the community, we have recommended the Board drop all trademark registrations of the Community logo to ensure it may be used by anyone. We have learned a lot from our experience with the Community logo registration. As a result, we would not register a mark like Wikipe-tan that is used by the community without asking the community for feedback first :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


Visual Guidelines talk page is protected (prohibits comments)

The talk page shouldn't be protected :) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Talk:Visual_identity_guidelines.

I also think the explanatory text on the visual guidelines page is too small.

(That page is very nicely laid out and has the spirit of simple design throughout). Ocaasi (talk) 12:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi, given that the Visual Identity Guidelines are closely related to the trademark policy, maybe we can just discuss it here (as you have) and we'll take that feedback to improve the guidelines. Thanks! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Very practically, just add a link to the proper discussion page on top of that talkpage? Effeietsanders (talk) 16:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
@Effeietsanders: Good idea, I added a link. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Well... I guess that is a pragmatic solution, for this specific conundrum. But why is this the case? "Unfortunately, wikimediafoundation.org does not allow open editing at this time" They give no rationale for using locked-down-no-editing-allowed protection, as opposed to something like w:WP:FLAGGED aka "moderated" talkpages. Is there a rationale for locked-down talkpages, published somewhere? I would have asked over on that talkpage, usually, but... you see....     :-)   — 74.192.84.101 16:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, this has been a bit of a question for some time. There was a move about a year or so ago to open up particular namespaces, perhaps, for editing, but I'm not sure where that stands currently. I actually don't think flagged revisions/pending changes/the-name-of-the-month is a terrible idea for that wiki. Noted. I'll nudge some folks in engineering, communications, and HR/Talent and Culture and see if I can't get a conversation started about that again. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

FAQ button/icon looks odd left-aligned at the top of the Trademark Policy introduction

It's a nice navigation table you have, but on my browser FAQ is by itself on a second line and all the way on the left. It frankly draws all the attention to FAQ rather than the top-line sections. Perhaps it'd be better if FAQ was center-aligned on the second row. (You've clearly taken the community's concerns into account in this document, and responded thoughtfully. Thanks for that). Ocaasi (talk) 12:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point. The policy was designed on wider screen where are the icons were on one line. We'll see how we can tweak to avoid the focus on the FAQ. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Logo remixing

If I'm hosting a glam editathon at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, can I be cute and do this?

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1MPYF35g10HqLTzAdaoqhdv6U4W4Uf5g7A0ZkgfCgtpU/edit?usp=sharing

(By the way, where's Rory?? He only likes privacy and not trademarks, I guess.) Ocaasi (talk) 13:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

In the past I was told no, because modifications to any marks other than the community mark was off-limits. I also want clarification. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Remixes used to be prohibited in the old trademark policy, but will be allowed on the Wikimedia sites under the new draft. So it really depends on where you plan to display the logo. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 15:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks YWelinder (WMF) How about a) on a physical flyer at the Art Museum, b) on a physical flyer at a nearby Universtiy b) on an online Wikipedia project page, c) on the online Art Museum webpage? Ocaasi (talk) 15:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
That sort of begs the question: what is a "wikimedia site" ? Is it exclusively the WMF project sites? Does it include Wikimedia Chapter sites, or sites they host? Does it include a site created by wikimedians to support their efforts on wikimedia projects? What about Affiliate Groups? - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 17:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
@Amgine: We currently define “Wikimedia sites” as sites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation and listed on this page. But I don’t see a problem with also including something like “the official webpage of a movement organization.” Would that be a good revision?
@Ocaasi: You would always be able to post something like this on a Wikipedia project page. As for the other places, you would need to move up the image a little to include the white space shown in the Visual Identity Guidelines. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
@YWelinder: That really just kicks the can. What is a movement organization? A wikiproject I create to help coordinate effort on articles related to a topic? A recognized Affiliate Group? A Wikimedia Chapter? The community has always been organic, with high rates of churn, meaning an official, approved org may suddenly devolve to nothing while, flash-mob-like, a random coalition of like-minded individuals can sprout wings of activity and contributions. Much of the spontaneity of wiki community development is precluded by this policy's approach to regulating use, imo. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 15:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
@YWelinder (WMF): I would still like to see this question resolved, if that is possible? - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 14:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Amgine, my apologies for the delayed response. By movement organizations, we mean chapters, thematic organizations, and user-groups. These are the different types of groups that the community has established as part of the organic development of the movement. Trademark rights require some sort of organization, but we're trying to minimize the friction that it imposes by maximizing permitted trademark uses for the community. If the community comes up with additional recognized organizational types, we see no problem in expanding the term “Wikimedia sites” under this policy to cover them as well. I also completely agree with you that our movement thrives on its decentralized nature and the trademark policy needs to make room for that. That is why it has license exceptions for community-focused events and outreach work. I just wanted to emphasize that this policy does go beyond what most free culture and open source organizations are permitting as well as our current trademark policy. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
@YWelinder (WMF): I believe this reading would preclude the remixes of, for example, Wikinewsie.org although some of those remixes predate the trademarking of the project's logo. That particular site does not fall into an outreach or an event classification, and I know of a few similar projects of wikimedians building their own support sites using WMF logoremixes. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 22:09, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
This is a great question, but there is no need to worry, Wikinewsie does not violate the trademark policy draft :) It is a valid remix because even though it is not used on a Wikimedia site, the remix will not be confused with the original Wikinews logo. Their site has a completely different logo and it clearly states that they are supporting the English-language Wikinews project. Furthermore, in their footer, they provide a clear disclaimer that they are independent from the Wikimedia Foundation to ensure users are not confused. This is explained in FAQ 2.7, which states that other sites using WMF logo remixes of wordmarks are acceptable if it is clear that they represent something separate from the Wikimedia sites. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 23:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Actually, the Wikinewsie.org remix does not (to my knowledge) pre-date the registering of the Wikinews mark. However, it would've been back in 2007 or 2008 where we approached the Foundation about use of the mark in supporting Wikinews contributors. All reuses/remixes have been clearly highlighted as contributor-related, and not affiliated with the WMF. That was an emphasised requirement at the time the issue was discussed, and we've been at pains to respect that request and avoid doing anything which might dilute, diminish, or tarnish the mark. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment, Brian. I'll make sure that the legal team sees it and responds to it. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Brian for writing in and clarifying those dates :) Wikinewsie.org has done a great job of notifying users of its independence from WMF. Their continued efforts to not only support Wikinews contributors, but also respect the original Wikimedia marks is greatly appreciated as it allows Wikimedia to maintain trademark protection over its marks and innovative initiatives like Wikinewsi.org to use remixes of the logos. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Registration of the community logo as a collective membership mark

@User:YWelinder (WMF) announced in this blog post that the Foundation plan to register the community logo as a collective membership mark, and have included a provision with respect to the use of this logo in the draft policy. How does it relate to the fact that this very discussion was just re-started, and the fact that you have been conveniently avoiding answering questions asked by various community members at Community Logo/Reclaim the Logo, Community Logo/Request for consultation and Talk:Trademark practices discussion (to name just a few places)? Given that you decided to take some steps even before this discussion got moving, it's really hard (for me) to assume that you care about what the community think about this. odder (talk) 11:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Collective membership mark

Hi everyone,

Given that odder and Nemo have started a legal action against WMF, I cannot respond to them directly regarding matters in that action. As a lawyer for WMF in that action, I have to communicate with them only through their lawyers and will do so. That is very unfortunate because we have an ongoing consultation regarding trademarks to get feedback from the community, but we also have to observe ethical rules.

But I would like to provide some background on the consultation for the collective membership mark. We started that discussion almost two months ago. Since then, we have engaged in an active discussion with the community and received strong community support for registering the community logo as a collective membership mark. There were some comments requesting additional information, so we provided an update on how a collective membership mark would provide protection in both the US and the EU. Now in the draft trademark policy, this is explained in more detail. Ultimately, there were 42 supporting comments (!votes) and 9 opposing comments (with 12 abstentions) in the consultation on the collective membership mark. As we were already rolling out the new trademark policy for community consultation, we initiated a specific discussion with respect to the standard that should be applied with respect to the use of the community logo as a collective membership mark.

Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, that all sounds fair enough. But the legal-profession-ethical-restraints you are under do not apply to myself, correct, since I'm not a party to the lawsuit, and have never used nor abused the RGB-globe-logo, correct? (I plead the fifth on that puzzle-globe thing btw.) I have some questions about the specifics of the RGB-logo-fiasco, that will help me understand what the best way forward is. But it seems that it might be helpful, for me to ask a couple questions, concerning the past and the present situation, which I believe you or some other w:WP:INVOLVED representative of the WMF are perfectly free to answer.
  1. Does the WMF believe that the way in which the RGB-globe-logo situation has been handled by the WMF folks, during the past few years and especially the past twelve months, was optimal for all wikipedians everywhere, and flatly could not have been done better, with what was known at the time?
    As we have explained elsewhere, the Community logo was on the list of Wikimedia logos in April 2009, when the Board directed WMF staff to register the logos. Trademark registration is a good way to protect them. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
  2. Is the WMF really really really sorry for their part in failing to prevent the current acrimonious state of affairs, and willing to work with everybody to get things solved properly, in a way that satisfies the spirit of w:WP:CONSENSUS rather than merely the letter of some esoteric lawbook, so that we can all get back to really really Assuming Good Faith about each other?
    We’re absolutely willing to work with the community and assume good faith to reach a consensus regarding this logo. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
  3. Even if that working-things-out-process might, at the end of the day, mean WMF will have to drop the idea of trademarking the meta-wiki-logo entirely, and perhaps spend the time and money to create a totally distinct logo for use on meta-wiki-website, and so on?
    As we stated when we initiated the community logo consultation, “[w]e will follow the clear direction from the wider community and the Board, and we are willing to drop the registration as well as the protection of the logo.” YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
This is a question of whether the WMF is committed, basically. I expect the answers to be "coulda done waay betta" / "we truly regret our historical part" / "if the community consensus is to start over we will not shirk that mandate" but methinks Odder and Nemo and the others will feel much better if some official WMF pooh-bah were to step forward and give a long heartfelt answer. Would any such pooh-bah care to stick out their neck?  :-)   Besides, there are other battles to fight, right? We could be arguing about whether to say Chelsea or Bradley, not to mention, whether infoboxen are the spawn of satan-atan-atan, correct? Let's get this trademark-of-the-public-domain-logo thing amicably worked out, so we can all get back to the important stuff, please. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 17:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi 74, I cannot agree more. I just want this resolved in the best way for the community. Please see my in-line responses to your questions above. Hope that helps! Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

PD as a trademark

Pard' my French English :-) as it's not my native language. Anyone is free to correct the text.
The issue with the community logo registered as a WMF trademark had been discussed at ru-wiki as well. A few questions in my translation I asked then and still seeking for answers.

  • Is it possible at all under the US law to take a public domain arwork, which is not a someone's trademark, never was someone's trademark before, and not originally created as someone's trademark — and to register such image as someone's trademark? To visualize the question: would it be possible this year for a perfume company to register Mona Lisa for a new line of their perfume and to prevent onward any use of Mona Lisa for perfumes by other companies? I do realize that artistic merits of the community logo are way below such of Mona Lisa :-) At the same time I don't see any legal differences for both of them. But I am not a lawyer and I well can be mistaken.

If after a better thinking the answer is "no", then the whole trademark registration seems legally void and the question closed. If yes, then:

  • Is there a way for Commons contributors prevent their donations under PD-self or similar to be registered as someone's trademark? at least without their explicit concerns? Would it make any legal difference to contribute such artworks under Cc-zero rather than PD-self? I see the paragraph 4.a of the legal code of this license saying: «No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.» Bit I don't understand if it makes any implications for a 3rd party decided to register such artwork under CC-0 as a trademark.

I would be most graceful for some light shed on it. --NeoLexx (talk) 15:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Neolexx, thanks for your questions. I'll respond here shortly. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi NeoLexx,
1. While it may seem odd, it is possible for a perfume company to register a trademark in Mona Lisa if the image comes to represent its perfume (see, for example, this trademark registration of Mona Lisa for a business management consulting company). Trademark is very different from other types of IP rights. Unlike with copyright, the creator of an image doesn’t get a trademark right in the image simply by creating it. He or she first needs to establish a connection between that image and other work. It is that connection that is protected by trademark law, which operates independently of copyright. For that reason, if the image comes to represent goods or services of an organization, that organization acquires a trademark right in the image rather than the image creator. And once the image no longer represents the goods or services of the organization, the trademark right is lost (again, without any implication for any copyright in the image).
2. Generally, the only way to prevent someone from trademarking an image is to either license it under a non-free licence, such as CC BY-NC (which Commons contributors can’t do), or by trademarking the image. For trademark purposes, it wouldn’t make a difference whether a contributor licenses the image under CC0 or labels it as public domain. CC0 and public domain labels do not affect anyone’s trademark right in the image, which arises independently by virtue of association between the image and certain other work. So if the image creator also establishes a trademark in the image, he or she doesn’t waive it by licensing the image under CC0. But the CC0 license also doesn’t prevent others from establishing a trademark right in the image. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you greatly for your elaborative answers. I'm going to make a translation of it for the relevant Russian discussion if you don't mind.
As I suspected earlier, here the US patent trademark law is nearly straight opposite to the Russian one. For instance in case of Iya Yots v. State Hermitage Museum it was declined to trademark even a clearly derivative work of the "Lady in Blue" by Gainsborough (ca. 1780). Here the core approach as I read it for trademarking is "common property — is no one in particular property in such commercial means". Again I am not a professional lawyer and I can be wrong.
If not, it can be a "mirror situation" not between the US and Russia per se, but between the common law and the civil law in whole. Then between the US and Poland (or another EU country) as well. Then it can be one of roots of the tension because of "improper actions" and so in the community logo issue.
As a side note I say that I am personally a bit shocked by the US trademarking freedom as described and I need now an extra coffee with a lot of sugar. :-) But my shock is my shock and the acting laws are acting laws. I need to go over the first and to accommodate a part of my thinking for the second, I guess.
--NeoLexx (talk) 19:48, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm glad that I could clarify this and please feel free to forward and translate my response. While trademark laws differ greatly in other countries, the relationship between public domain (copyright) and trademark is similar in Europe. From the Lady in Blue article, it sounds like Russian museums have the right to control how images are used for trademark purposes ("Сутью является обладание российскими музеями всеми имущественными и смежными правами на хранимое ими общественное достояние, включая права на создание любых производных произведений любой достаточной (в терминах товарных знаков) схожести.") I'd be curious to know whether this applies to public domain images that are not held by museums as well. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Translated at our copyright forum as a separate topic. As I said at the bottom, we better hope that the personality rights protection in the US is strong enough to not find own grand-dad's war photo once placed on Commons latter being used on spam cans and stuff :-) With Iya Yots there are two separate issues: first an attempt of trademarking (2008), second a commercial use for "an atmosphere in the business place" (2010—now). The latter is still currently contested in a court of appeal, the first is steadily in effect as I know. Any way, "У каждой избушки свои погремушки" (~ Every family has a skeleton in the cupboard)... :-( :-) Thank you again, going to sleep now. --NeoLexx (talk) 21:29, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
This topic was so fascinating that we wanted to dig a little deeper. I’ve looked at the decision from the Sixteenth Arbitration Court of Appeals of May 20, 2013 for Iya Yots v. State Hermitage Museum. As I understand, the trademark registration in that case was denied because the work was an object of cultural heritage. It looks like Article 1483, Paragraph 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation prohibits registration of precious objects of cultural heritage of the people of the Russian Federation or of world cultural or natural heritage preserved in a collection. Lady in Blue is also covered by a Resolution of the Russian Federation Government (No. 480 pursuant to Presidential Decree number 294 of 1991 "On specially of national heritage of Russia"), stating that the State Hermitage Museum is federal property and cannot be subject to privatisation.
It seems that this case did not broadly address trademarking of images that are in the public domain for copyright purposes. Rather, it stated that Russian law doesn’t allow trademarking of objects of cultural heritage that are permanently located in a public institution in Russia. This was a really interesting issue to look into. Keep them coming! :) --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 08:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
>This topic was so fascinating — I'm glad you like it :-) btw it's me who wrote the relevant article content — after the initial news hint from the executive director of the Russian local chapter. You may give credits to him as well. I am a philologist by my primary education and my job. Still being a many years lurker and poster of Commons and ru-wiki copyright forums I have collected a large collection of most different cases of the kind. By now I'm afraid if I start selling them even for a buck per item I'd become a wealthy person :-) But for the project everything is for free of course. But it seems more appropriate then to continue with this at your talk page. If you have any particular topic demand for the first entry just let me know.

Within the scope of the current discussion I see one unclear aspect remained. As it was clearly stated before, the copyright law and the trademark law are in two "parallel non-crossing universes". This way any trademark limitations have no effect to Wikimedia Commons hosting rules. This way it would be totally OK then to say donate an own work under CC-0 and with a warning like "Any trademarking is strictly prohibited" or something lesser restrictive of the kind? Or in the US trademarking is acting as a "force majeure"? Thus if someone decided to trademark something then no will or desire of the creator can stop it? --NeoLexx (talk) 06:52, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

We’re very glad you are in our community contributing on this important topic. Thanks for making Wikipedia better! As Yana stated in her response above, it would be correct to affirm that if someone licenses his/her work under CC0, he/she would be allowing any individual to trademark such work in the future (just like when a work is in the public domain because the copyright has expired). If it is licensed under CC0, no warning like “trademarking prohibited” would be possible. If such was the creator’s intention from the beginning, then it would be better to license the work under CC-BY-NC (or another non-free license), avoiding any commercial use - such as using the image to market products or filing for a trademark application. You can also acquire a trademark right before releasing the work into the public domain, in order to prevent someone else’s intention of doing that. Remember that if the author already has trademark rights over the work (before releasing it to the public domain), licensing it under CC0 would not waive or abandon such rights (as established in 4(a) of the CC0’s legal code).
By the way, for me being a Colombian attorney working in legal issues in the US, all this knowledge you’re sharing regarding Russian copyright issues has definitely been a blast to study! Any more information related on this topic you want to discuss is more than welcome in my talk page! I don’t have any particular topic in mind for a first entry, so feel free to start with any food for thought you have in mind! :) --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

"It was adopted in 2008"

The text of the page says "It was adopted in 2008". This is incorrect: it was adopted by the Meta-Wiki community in 2008, but it was in use by (parts of) the Wikimedia community earlier, e.g. on Toolserver. --Nemo 12:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Good catch! We will clarify the language to state “it was officially adopted as the community logo for Meta-Wiki in 2008.” MBrar (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Outreach and recruiting new contributors

Do "outreach and contributor recruitment" include videos like this one? Hope so :) Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is a great example of outreach material. Nice video! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:54, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree. Nice introductory video! Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Nomitive Use, "misleading" and "truthful"

Reading through, I noticed the following two sections, which I am not sure if I am interpreting correctly:

  • Derivative work of Wikimedia content in a way that is not misleading (e.g. "the encyclopedic content on this site is derived from Wikipedia").
  • You may use the Wikimedia marks to make truthful statements about the Wikimedia sites in news reports and commentary.

According to my current understanding of these lines, they intend to prohibit the use of trademarks such as "Wikipedia" statements which contain or imply false or misleading information about MediaWiki et cetera. As an example, a smear campaign would, in addition to whatever action is taken, incur trademark violations. While I by no means endorse smear campaigns and the like, MediaWiki's policy relating to such things should be separate from its policy on trademark misuse for the following reasons:

  1. The potential for inadvertent violation is worryingly high. As it is currently worded, my understanding is that the use of one of the trademarks in conjunction with false or misleading information would constitute a trademark violation whether or not the information was intentionally false or misleading.
  2. I'm not certain MediaWiki even can revoke nominative use of its trademarks like this. According to my (admittedly somewhat limited) understanding of trademark law, nominative use of trademarks is protected, at least under US law. For instance, McDonald's could not bring trademark violation charges against a movie which alleges, say, that each McNugget takes ten years off your life, while knowing full well that that is not the case. Defamation charges, probably, but not trademark violation ones. In jurisdictions outside the US where nominative use is not protected I can see the policy being enforceable, but I would put forward that blanket permission for nominative use should be extended to those in such jurisdictions, for reasons of consistency, if nothing else.
  3. Assuming, however, that I am wrong on the previous point, I would put forward that the policy is not a desirable one. Such a policy has the potential put a chilling effect on discussion about MediaWiki et cetera, which runs counter to MediaWiki's values and vision. I cannot speak for others, but I would very much see granting blanket permission for nominative use, even in scenarios where it would be possible and even standard to deny it, as advancing said vision and values.

Before it's brought up in response, I would like to point out that (as far as I understand) even if this section of the policy were completely removed, in no way would MediaWiki's protections from defamation et cetera be impaired or lessened. Anyway, it would be much appreciated if someone would allay my worries about this/help work out an alternate policy. I apologize if this post lacks coherency at points. I wrote it in-between other tasks, and I am currently somewhat sleep-deprived, so it's not exactly my best work. Aero-Plex (talk) 15:51, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, Aero-Plex. The legal team will take a look and get back to you soon. Hope you get some sleep. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Aero-Plex! The two statements you’ve identified in Sections 3.6 and 3.6.1 are specific examples of how the word marks could be used in a fashion that would be treated as nominative fair use under United States trademark law. They are not meant as an exhaustive list of of the scenarios that would qualify as nominative fair use -- just two common cases. Any use of the word marks that is nominative fair use would not be a trademark infringement and the Wikimedia Foundation would have no right to forbid it (and thus no authority to “permit” it in the Trademark Policy). AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
I should add a caveat to my last comment: Nominative fair use may be interpreted differently or more broadly under United States trademark law than it is in some other countries. Some countries may not recognize nominative fair use at all. To the extent that nominative fair use is more narrow or restrictive in a given country than it is under United States trademark law, the Trademark Policy is intended to allow uses of the word mark that would fall under the umbrella of normative fair use in the United States even if the uses would not be similarly privileged in that country. AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I suppose the parts I was mainly asking about are the qualifiers "truthful" and "not misleading" - basically, could, for instance, knowingly making a false or misleading statement about Wikimedia in a news report fall under the protection of nominative use, or would the statement being knowingly false preclude it from such? If it would fall under the nominative use protections, then it might be a good idea to remove those qualifiers, as I can see them causing confusion among readers. Aero-Plex (talk) 15:27, 7 December 2013 (UTC)\
Hi Aero-Plex -- it turns out that’s not an easy question to answer :) In the U.S. at least, nominative fair use isn’t a clear set of rules -- it’s a set of judge-made factors that courts balance on a case by case basis to make decisions specific to the facts of their case.
As an example, one factor for determining nominative use is that “only so much of the mark or marks [is] used as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service.” So if someone were to make a statement about “Wikipedia” hosting leaked government documents while actually describing Wikileaks (i.e. using the “Wikipedia” word mark in a misleading fashion), this would not be a nominative use because using “Wikipedia” is not necessary at all to identify Wikileaks.
Rather than just throw the factors out there and ask potential users of the trademarks to determine what’s nominative use on their own, we wanted to provide some specific examples of what is ok (because it’s nominal fair use) as guidance. AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:24, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Granting of licenses

I am most interested in the Wikimedia Community Logo, but just to help me understand how licenses are proposed to be granted, could someone please help me with a comparison of different cases?

Here is the situation - An event coordinator is organizing a community meeting for 100 people and would like to advertise the event with a Wikimedia logo. The event is about education; it is asserted that there is some relationship between the conference and Wikimedia projects, and a Wikimedia presentation will be part of the conference. At the event, this person would like to sell merchandise branded with the logo including books and thumbdrives of Wikimedia content showing the logo and the city and date of the conference. The event coordinator applies for a license at Trademark/Request a license form.

What happens? Is the license automatically granted as a matter of process or are variables weighed and is a decision to grant or not grant a license made? Who will make this decision and on what basis? To what extent does the outcome change if the following variables change?:

Most of these uses would be considered use of logos for a community-focused event, which doesn't require a trademark license under Section 3.2. The use of logos in the presentation about Wikimedia may further be “nominative use” or “outreach” under Section 3.3, which can also be done without a license. Selling merchandise would however require a license under Section 4.6. Given that the merchandise would be sold in the course of a community-focused event for community members, we would likely issue a trademark license after reviewing the application to make sure that there are no issues with it and that it complies with Section 4.6. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The event coordinator is a member of the Wikimedia community, versus not a member
If the event coordinator is a community member, the application will get priority. An organizer of a community-focused event of the type that you describe above would also get priority. This means that we would process their applications before we review applications from movie studios, publishers, and other unrelated organizations. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The event coordinator has the support of established Wikipedians, versus someone without expressed community support
We would treat such an event coordinator in the same way we treat community members.
  • The venue hosting the conference is a for-profit entity, versus a non-profit entity
We don’t currently consider whether the venue is a non-profit when we grant trademark licenses.
  • The conference itself is a commercial conference, versus a non-profit conference
We are more likely to issue a license if the conference is closely aligned to the Wikimedia mission. If it is a commercial conference for community members, we would try to ensure that the admission is free or low cost to make it accessible to as many community members as possible.
Under the latest draft of Section 3.4, the event organiser would be able to use the Community logo without a trademark license. The puzzle globe would require a license for commercial merchandise.
  • The logo requested is a unique derivative of the Wikimedia community logo designed for use in this event, versus an existing logo
The Community logo (as well as derivatives) would be used freely under the latest version of Section 3.4.
  • The merchandise (books and thumbdrives) are sold at cost to produce, versus for profit
If the merchandise are sold at cost to produce, it is more likely that the organizer is simply trying to promote the Wikimedia movement. We would therefore grant such a license if the use otherwise complied with Section 4.6.

My understanding of the precedent and history was that if someone is using a Wikimedia Foundation trademarked logo such as the Wikipedia puzzle globe, then all these sorts of factors are considerations in making a decision about whether a license to use the logo would be granted. I further understood that if the Wikimedia Community Logo or its derivatives were used, then the event coordinator could use the logo without seeking any permission or oversight at all. I like the idea of having people request a license if only to register the frequency with which logos are used and to direct them to tutorials on policy and correct usage, and also I like the idea of regulating use of the marks most associated with the Wikimedia Foundation and less associated with the Wikimedia community. I am not sure how I would feel about someone requesting to use the Wikimedia Community Logo and then having their request denied - perhaps this could be good or not, but I do not think this kind of regulation follows the historical use of the Wikimedia Community Logo. Under what circumstances could it happen that someone request a license to use the Wikimedia Community Logo or any derivative and have their request denied? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:00, 7 December 2013 (UTC) What background exists for this? I found this -

Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry, Thanks for outlining the different licensing cases. I'll provide a response here shortly. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: Thanks for your detailed questions. I have responded to them in-line above. Hope its helpful! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you @YWelinder (WMF):. Your answers match my hopes and expectations and satisfy me entirely. I understand better and will share what I learned with others. Thanks for replying. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

German translation

I cannot edit "wahrheitsgemäßeBeschreibung" to "wahrheitsgemäße [space/Leerzeichen] Beschreibung" --WikiWikinger (talk) 22:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I have made the change.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Defining commercial use

How does the Wikimedia Foundation define "commercial use"? I know that the Wikimedia projects have adopted Creative Commons licenses; do the projects also adopt Creative Commons' definitions of "commercial use"? It seems to me that Creative Commons is an authority on the matter.

Leaving aside nuance and special cases, what differences if any exist in the Wikimedia Foundation's perspective on "commercial use" and Creative Commons' perspective of the same? If the perspective of Creative Commons and its supporters used "commercial use" in a certain way, and if the Wikimedia community also was aligned with that perspective, then should I expect that the Wikimedia Foundation would likewise be aligned with that perspective?

I am asking because I know that the Creative Commons community has done research on this topic and found that the issue is complicated.

The term "non-commercial" is being used in the trademark policy despite it being a troublesome term to define. I feel that most people's perspectives on the term are defined by the way that Creative Commons uses it, but I am not aware of the Wikimedia community or Wikimedia Foundation making any statements about how noncommercial is defined for the Wikimedia movement. I would be in favor of following the lead of Creative Commons and their community as a default practice until and unless there is reason to do otherwise, but what is the current practice now? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry. Thanks for your questions, comments, and links. I'll make sure that the legal team sees this and responds to you soon. Take care, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, no rush. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello @Bluerasberry: thanks for the links. The Creative Commons' research on this question is a helpful reference point, but for trademark purposes we plan to look at the question on a case by case basis. For most cases, a commercial use should be easy to recognize (for example, selling a product with the Wikipedia logo on it). If someone has a question about whether their use is commercial, they can contact us at trademarks@wikimedia.org and we will look at the specific facts. If needed, we can make further clarification in the FAQ based on the questions we receive. Looking at the Creative Commons research, we should also keep in mind that they are approaching the question from a copyright perspective, so they face slightly different issues. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Slaporte (WMF). You have addressed my question in entirety and I am satisfied with your response. I appreciate your reply. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:56, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Copy-edit queries

I just ran through it lightly, making no substantive changes.

Two queries:

  • "outreach work without a trademark license" – can that be more clearly expressed as "outreach work that has no trademark license"? (especially for translators)
“[W]ithout a trademark license” means that all these uses can be done without getting a license, so we can make this provision clearer by revising it to “[t]hey are also free to use all Wikimedia marks on the Wikimedia sites and for community-focused events, as well as outreach work without getting a trademark license.” YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
  • "The names of the screenwriter, director, producer, distributor, actors, and any interviewees (for documentaries)." – is the intention to exclude interviews that are not part of documentaries? It would be OK to remove the parenthetical if the reference is to all interviews (say, in comedy, in news and current affairs, etc).
That’s a good point. We’ll remove the parenthetical. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Does the use of "Please" weaken the legal position of the WMF? For example, "Please do not use the Wikimedia marks in a mirror of a Wikimedia site." Why isn't it uniform in tone throughout: "Do not use the Wikimedia marks in a mirror of a Wikimedia site." Sounds like a serious aspect of the policy to me.
We use the word “please” throughout the policy to make it sound friendlier than regular legal documents. It is consistent with our broader trademark practice. For example, we found that friendly cease-and-desist letters with respect to trademark infringement can be just as effective as using more stringent language. The use of the word “please” throughout the policy should not change the legal meaning of the provisions. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony (talk) 06:01, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony, thank you for your questions and comments. The legal team will take a look at these points and get back to you about them. Kind regards, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Tony! Thank you for making the draft clearer. Please see my responses to your comments in-line above. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony1, I have changed 'get' to 'obtain' throughout, as get is a beautiful word that some grammarians recommend against using for various reasons, but one that is relevant is that people with English as a Second Language can stumble on it easily, especially when used in relation to a process as it could mean after a stage of a process, or it could mean the process itself. John Vandenberg (talk) 16:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC) (revert or improve if you disagree)

All sounds good. Tony (talk) 13:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Trademark_policy/Archives/2013&oldid=20568552"