Talk:Trademark policy/Archives/2014

Arabic Translation

In section 3.2, what do you mean by the word provision in the following sentence: "This provision does not allow you to use the marks for fundraising"? Is it a law or legal statement; or a supply of something e.g. money, tangible items etc? Asaifm (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Asaifm, "provision" in that sentence means "term" or "clause" and refers to section 3.2. It means that section 3.2 does not allow the marks to be used for fundraising. Thanks for clarifying this for the translations! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks YWelinder! Provision has been translated mostly so far to "بند". You may find it sometimes as "شرط" too. Asaifm (talk) 21:08, 6 January 2014 (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) 21:54, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

App icon using modified Wikivoyage logo

OxygenGuide is an offline Wikivoyage. Its logo is based on the (previous) Wikivoyage logo:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.github.OxygenGuide

Is that OK? It is Open Source, and I am the developer so I can change it if not OK.

More generally, is it OK to use a modified Wikimedia logo as an app icon, if that app is created by the community, dedicated strictly to making the wiki's content more accessible or checking/improving the wiki's content? Thanks! Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Nicolas1981! Thanks for your work on making Wikivoyage content more accessible!

Generally, our trademark policy does not prevent the use derivatives of Wikimedia logos when they are so distinct from the original that users wouldn't be confused about the source of the app.

Given that the app is open source and is clearly advancing the Wikimedia mission, you may want to get a license to use the new Wikivoyage logo instead. To request a license, you can email us at trademarks@wikimedia.org. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 05:38, 7 January 2014 (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) 00:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

How will this policy be enforced outside the USA?

While reading and translating this policy, I can see what you want to enforce in terms of protection. What puzzles me though is comprehending how will you apply this policy outside the USA especially when there are no laws protecting trademarks in the country of violation. Could you elaborate on what steps are you going to take in such cases? Thanks! Asaifm (talk) 21:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Appreciate you mentioning this, Asaifm. A member of the legal team will get back to you shortly. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Asaifm! Most countries have trademark protection, though the extent of that protection varies. When we learn of an infringement, we usually try to contact the person in question regardless of where they are located. We do so through a friendly email or letter so that they feel comfortable contacting us. If we are unable to stop the infringement, we usually retain a law firm in that country, which helps us to figure out what our options are under local law. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 10 January 2014 (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) 00:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Community logo still mentioned in the policy

I've been assured by @James Alexander that, because the new policy will not cover the community logo, every mention of it will be removed before the draft is finalized. Yet, it hasn't been done to this day, and the consultation period appears to have finished (blog announcement). @YWelinder (WMF), AKoval (WMF), Philippe (WMF), LVilla (WMF), and Slaporte (WMF): can you please remove almost all mentions of the community logo from the policy before it is presented for Board of Trustees approval? I'm especially concerned about the parts which say that the new policy allows free use of that logo, because it doesn't.[1] I'm also pinging @Sj, Phoebe, and Raystorm: so that they're aware of this issue and can react before they vote on approving the new draft. odder (talk) 11:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey odder, I'm going to sleep (and we have a holiday tomorrow) so I am unlikely to respond right away but I'm a bit confused so if you could expand that may help the others answer in case they are as well. The new policy, as I read it, only mentions the Community Logo in a couple places to specifically call out that that it is available for free use ( "This logo can be used freely" , "The Wikimedia Community logo can be used freely." etc) with the only possible restriction being that it says that you shouldn't file a trademark registration for the logo.. which seems to make sense. I imagine that if someone attempted to reserve the mark for their own use (through a TM registration) and therefore taking it away from the community they would want us to defend it, I know I certainly would. I would also want the logo mentioned as it is (in a 'this is free to use' way) rather then not mentioned at all because if it is going to be free to use I think we have a bit of an obligation to make sure people know that instead of hiding it. It's obviously always possible I missed something so if there is a piece that looks different I'd appreciate some expansion. Jalexander--WMF 12:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi James, thanks for the fast response. I don't know whether the Foundation is planning to protect the community logo from malicious takeovers; I think someone already asked this question and did not receive an answer. I would certainly hope and expect the Foundation to act in community's interest should such a situation happen in the future, and would warmly welcome a statement from the legal team saying so.

As far as this new draft and its summary are considered, they mentioned that the community logo could be freely used as an effect of this new policy, which isn't true, since the logo is not covered by it. I personally don't think the community logo should be mentioned at all in this policy, just like you don't mention the Wiki Loves Monuments logo, the WALRUS logo, or other logos created by the community. To show what I meant, and in a wiki spirit, I removed some mentions of the logo from the policy and the summary (1, 2, 3); please do have a look at those edits. odder (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Wait, you wanted trademark protections removed from the community logo, but now you hope that the legal department will protect it from malicious takeovers? You can't have it both ways. You advocated for opening up the logo, now it's open. Don't go asking for legal interventions now... Anyway, I think you're being unhelpful by removing mentions of it. Do you want people to use the community logo or not? If so, then they have to learn about it somehow. It seems reasonable to assume people will learn about it via the trademark policy. Therefore, it seems like it would be in the best interest of anyone who actually wants the community logo to be used to leave mentions in there. Your over-interpreting of language is getting in the way of the actual goal here, I think. But, hey, whatever. -- phoebe | talk 22:20, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I absolutely can have it both ways, @Phoebe. If the Wikimedia Foundation aims to have the best interest of the community at heart, I think it is only reasonable that they would protect the logo against malicious takeovers should such situation arise. Of course, we at the community are perfectly capable of acting on our own, and the Foundation is not required for us to be able to effectively protect the logo. Reclaim the Logo has proven this beautifully, and if the Foundation does not wish to help the community in this case, I think they should make their stance known — it will definitely make it easier for us and our donors to decide whether it's best to donate money to the WMF or maybe choose a local chapter that is actually supporting the community that creates our projects.

I don't think I'm being unhelpful by removing mentions of the logo from the policy. That's just your opinion, and while you are entitled to it, please do notice that I did not remove all mentions of the community logo from the policy (such as section 3.4), but only those that were either misleading or simply factually incorrect. Also, please take into consideration that this logo isn't covered by the policy, so it doesn't make any sense from a legalese perspective to mention it; as I said before, the draft doesn't mention the logos of Wiki Loves Monuments, WALRUS, etc. But hey, whatever. odder (talk) 22:40, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, you did ask me to give my opinion, so I did. -- phoebe | talk 00:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

No worries James, this should make it clear: [2]. And please don't thank me, the past taught me I'd later have to pay you a high price for the honour. --Nemo 21:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Some recent edits by Philippe seem to imply that something is not clear yet about this matter. Everyone feel free to comment on talk. --Nemo 09:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

What the fuck is going on ? If the community logo is not trademarked by the Foundation, why should the trademark policy of the Foundation speak about it ? Or is there any hidden agenda behind this ? I've got to admit that I'm quite pissed at how all this was done... Pleclown (talk) 12:25, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

@Pleclown: be polite, please. @Nemo: As a board member I don't appreciate last minute editing of the draft; LCA closed the consultation in time for them to submit it to the board, on our calendar, before our meeting; given that, I would like a stable and legal-team approved version to read this week. Everyone had many months to read and consult, and I accept that it will never be perfect; you should too. -- phoebe | talk 22:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phoebe, thanks for stepping in. I've however no idea what you're talking about, the decision on the community logo (as regards the WMF staff) was taken over 40 days ago, way before the closure of this consultation. Its presence here was either a typo, or some misunderstaing, or a precedence issue on whether the staff should first wait for the board to confirm that they don't want WMF to register the community logo, or instead they can already proceed that way (including in this draft). As you've not yet commented on the issue, perhaps you may want to tell us if you/the board thinks that it takes an amendment to past board resolutions for the community logo not to be registered by WMF, and if yes whether and when the board will discuss the matter, and if yes if it will be decided together with this policy, and if yes where it can be written if not in the policy itself. --Nemo 22:43, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the matter was brought to us; I don't know if anything's been published yet, I'll have to look. Anyway, no one is arguing with the decision to withdraw trademark registration; that's not in dispute, and mentioning the community logo in the trademark policy doesn't imply that it is. As I noted above, I think mentioning the community logo as one option that is always open to people, in a description in the trademark policy of what people can do with the trademarks and what they can't, is perfectly reasonable. I don't think it's appropriate to keep making substantial edits at this late date, but mostly I certainly don't think it's worth edit warring over. -- phoebe | talk 00:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Phoebe, then we'll wait for info on how you plan to proceed on the matter. I agree that some parts of the page may name the community logo: see also my edit linked above and the comment below, 00:33, 22 January 2014. --Nemo 10:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

No, @Phoebe. I've been personally assured by @James Alexander that the legal team were working on re-writing the draft after the closure of the request for consultation that they started following our trademark opposition. Perhaps unwisely, I trusted James' assurance and did not look at this draft since — so you can imagine my surprise at seeing the logo still mentioned in it (for instance, "To further make it easier for community members to use the marks, this policy introduces some creative trademark solutions. For example, community members may freely use the Wikimedia Community logo", is just blatantly false), which, of course, resulted in my starting this discussion. odder (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey odder, it appears there may be some misunderstanding about my response to you on that. You asked me if we were going to remove all references to the Community Logo now that it wasn't going to be trademarked. You're right that I said I expected significant changes to be made to the document (and then talked about how it might take a bit of time given everything) but I also said that I expected the lawyers to want "something explicit in there about how 'this logo belongs to the community' too, so that it's obvious to others as well." That seems to be what they've done here. My comment about expecting final changes to take time "as people try to clarify etc" was meant to imply time for anyone within the community who didn't think the changes were clear enough to say so; I was hoping you'd continue to participate in that discussion in case anything was unclear. Jalexander--WMF 00:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

@Jalexander: And I'm cool with that; as I wrote above in response to Phoebe, I'm not removing every mention of the logo from the policy (even though I don't think it should be there), only the parts that were false (see above) or misleading (such as links to a Commons category for community logo derivatives when talking about remixes of trademarked logos). odder (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

And yet, @Philippe just revered my edit, bringing those links back. Let me repeat what I already said: linking to a category with files derived from the community logo—which isn't covered by this policy–while talking about remixing Wikimedia trademarks is totally misleading. (This is visible in Translations:Trademark policy/40/en and Translations:Trademark policy/50/en.) Please, please fix it. Thank you. odder (talk) 18:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

… anyone? odder (talk) 20:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I have taken another look at this, and I believe it is appropriate for the policy to mention the free use of the community logo, which we have done, for example, in Section 3.4. That logo is the symbol that is on all the Meta-Wiki pages hosted by WMF, so we should explain that the community logo is treated differently from the other Wikimedia marks; as the community consultation showed on the issue, there were differing and strong views on the registration of the mark, so a clear statement in the trademark statement is appropriate to ensure we all move forward on the same page; and, finally, a clear statement will help ensure against any inadvertent registration in the future (after this debate is long forgotten). That said, I will remove the sentence that refers to the community logo in line 73 "(It allows community members to use the Wikimedia marks without a trademark license for Wikimedia community-focused events and outreach work.") since the context of that sentence is subject to different interpretations. We will also post the Wikimedia logo, in lieu of the community logo, in the summary section of the new trademark policy to avoid too much emphasis on the community logo. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:44, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Mention the free use, why not. Linking to remixes of the community logo when speaking about remixes of trademarked logos of the Foundation, no. There is plenty others remixed Foundation trademarked logos on Commons to chose from. Pleclown (talk) 16:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Pleclown! We have replaced the links. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, @YWelinder (WMF), this change is greatly appreciated. odder (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2014 (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) 20:57, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Board review edits

I have done a final review of the trademark policy as we prepare its presentation to the Board for its January 31st meeting. Upon further reflection, to avoid confusion by community members and others, I want to underscore in the policy what we already say in the FAQ (FAQ 3.4) that Wikimedia marks should be used to represent only the projects for which they stand. Therefore, in Section 5.3 of the trademark policy, I am adding the following sentence: "When you use a Wikimedia mark under this policy, please use it to represent only the project for which it stands." Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:44, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

We have also made a few editorial changes to the Trademark policy and the FAQ. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

<jocular>
...one Foundation under Jimbo, indivisible,...
</jocular> - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news} 19:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Can we modify the Wikipedia logo for a local Wikipedia?

We're discussing a minor change to the Wikipedia logo for the Romanian Wikipedia (several community members feel Romanian would be better represented if we included a Romanian-specific character on the logo instead of one of the characters currently on the logo). This will be subsequently used as the main logo on ro.wikipedia.org. I wanted to make sure this is fine with WMF before we conclude the discussion there. --Gutza (talk) 10:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

A site

Hi. I faced a web-site http://uatransparency.org which uses a name "Wikipedia Чиновників". It seems that they mess up what's Wiki and what's Wikipedia but anyway it's an abuse. Please take care of that. Thanks. --Base (talk) 14:36, 1 September 2014 (UTC)