Am Donnerstag, den 15.07.2021, 13:06 +0200 schrieb Leo Prikler: > Am Mittwoch, den 14.07.2021, 09:57 -0400 schrieb Bone Baboon: > > [...] > > > > In this response to the pull request I submitted about the > > questionable files in the cowsay repository > > < > > https://github.com/tnalpgge/rank-amateur-cowsay/pull/4#issuecomment-878092487 > > apjanke is requesting feedback. > > > > > If there are any actual IP lawyers, relevant IP owners, or > > > distributions who redistribute cowsay who would like to weigh in > > > on > > > this, I'd definitely like to hear what you have to say. > > > > For those who want to respond to apjanke but do not have or do not > > want to use a GitHub account I can link this email thread in the > > discussion about the pull request. > I am not an IP lawyer, nor do I own any of said characters, but I'd > like to point out that not all jurisdictions follow the US model. In > Germany for example, you can (in the near future/already?) not use > more than 160 characters of copyrighted material -- granted, the > cowfiles are shorter than that, but copyright law is troubling over > here in Europe nonetheless. To expand on this, the 160 characters thing is a compromise, as according to ยง51a of the UrhG the use of copyrighted material for the purposes of caricature or parody is legal in Germany [1]. Vader koalas would probably fall under this paragraph.
Now one could hypothesize that this applies to other parts of the EU as well, but I wouldn't be too sure about that. The Austrian UrhG at least to my untrained eyes and substring search appears to be lacking such a right to parody our great mouse overlord. As others point out, it is debatable whether or not such a trademark can be enforced, but what we should be discussing -- and I'd be more than happy to be wrong on this -- is whether or not the cowfiles can be distributed under GPL-compatible terms/in accordance with the FSDG. Regards, Leo [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__51a.html
