On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Daniel Gagnon <redalas...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Chip Collier <pho...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I was also intending on using the logo in such a way to communicate that >> a site I'm building is "powered by clojure" or something to that effect >> with a link to clojure.org. Is that frowned upon? >> >> Chip > > Unfortunately, trademark laws are written in such a way that allowing this > risk making Rich lose his trademark. If he knows about it, he must put a > stop to it otherwise he can't claim to own the trademark. This is quite > different from copyrights where you are the author no matter what.
I don't know if this differs in other countries, but in America that's a gross oversimplification at best. First of all, one only has to police unauthorized use of the trademark. One can authorize its use under particular circumstances, and then those uses don't need to be policed to avoid losing the trademark. Second, trademark law only covers "use in commerce". Use on a personal webpage would not be covered, and would not have to be policed or risk losing the mark. Use on a commercial site (which might be broadly inclusive of, for instance, pages with revenue-generating ads) might be another matter, if it's seen as implying an endorsement or a claim to be the product/service the mark names. But... Third, use of the mark in a purely factual manner is not, to my knowledge, governed by law. So, a store needn't negotiate a license with Coca Cola Inc. to say they have Coca Cola for sale, at least as long as they aren't lying. Saying a site is powered by X, when it really is powered by X, may fall under the same rule, given that there's no implication that the site *is* X or is endorsed by X. Identifying a noncommercial user group as a Clojure user group would be analogous to identifying a noncommercial Web site as powered by Clojure, to my mind. Trademark law would not apply, and Rich wouldn't risk losing the trademark by not sending a lawyer after the group. However, an earlier post claimed Rich had *copyrighted* the logo, which is another kettle of fish. On the one hand there's no need to police use or risk losing a copyright; on the other, a copyright covers noncommercial use as well as commercial. I'm not sure how copyrightable a fairly simple logo design really is, though. There are circumstances that exempt one from needing a copyright license, "fair use", that tend to include noncommercial activities that don't harm the copyright holder's market. If Rich has copyrighted the logo, but isn't selling copies or cheap licenses to use it, a noncommercial use might well be found to be a fair use. Personally, I think it would be silly to block uses of the logo to refer to Clojure in circumstances that don't imply an endorsement that doesn't exist, but obviously Rich is not obligated to share my opinion of what would be silly. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
