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On Wednesday 18 August 2004 03:07, Kurt Lieber wrote: |
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> On Tue, Aug 17, 2004 at 07:12:19PM -0400 or thereabouts, Joshua Brindle |
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wrote: |
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> > Aside from people selling stuff with our logo/name how does trademark |
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> > law work on something like |
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> > http://www.gentoo-wiki.com |
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> |
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> Not sure on the issue of using Gentoo as part of their domain name. |
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> The use of our logo on the site, however, is clearly not authorized. |
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The use is not authorized and probably a violation of trademark law. |
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However I feel that we should grant them a license to use this name, with |
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a number of conditions. |
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> |
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> > afaik noone could register microsoft-wiki.com so this seems like a |
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> > violation, are we going to grant exceptions on a per case basis for |
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> > pages like this which really want to help the community and not just |
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> > make a buck? |
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Yes, I think we should grant on case by case basis, and also have |
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conditions and a limited license duration (automatically renewed with a |
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cancellation term) so we can keep control of sites that got a license but |
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changed their setup. |
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> |
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> Protecting our IP isn't just about making (or not making) a buck. We |
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> can chose to license our logo to whomever we want for free if we wish. |
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> However, we need to consider the consequences of that. If we allow |
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> someone to set up a site that looks and feels like our own (or even |
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> just uses our logo...) there is a reasonable chance that folks will |
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> assume they're an official part of our organization. Things that get |
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> posted on that site may be taken as official communications, etc. |
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The main issue is that if you don't protect your trademark, you loose it. |
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There is no option but to defend our trademarks. |
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> We don't have to charge for use of our logo, but I *do* think we should |
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> be very picky about who we allow to use our logo. |
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I also think we should be picky on how we allow our logo to be used. I |
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think this example uses the logo inappropriate. While there is a text |
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message that this is not an official site, the prominent placing of the |
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logo makes it very easy to miss this notice. |
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|
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Paul |
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ps. we should really make work of getting a good default license setup and |
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contacting these people about the licensing of the trademarks |
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|
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-- |
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Paul de Vrieze |
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Gentoo Developer |
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Mail: pauldv@g.o |
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Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net |
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