Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
In message hev0h8$ui...@ger.gmane.org, Joe Smith unknown_kev_...@hotmail.com writes Now I looka at the other extreme. In theory, with copyright if you independently create a work that happens to be absolutely identical (say letter by letter or pixel by pixel), without even knowing about the other work, then the result is two works each with a seperate copyright that just happen to be indistinguishable. Of course that is scholarly theory, and the law in the real world is ill equiped to handle such a possibility. This, of course, can easily happen with photography :-) (I speak loosly above, talking about a work having a copyright. I obviously mean that the authors or some other rights holder (such as in the case of a work for hire) being granted a limited monopoly on repdoucing the work, among other things.) Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:41:40 + Anthony W. Youngman wrote: In message hev0h8$ui...@ger.gmane.org, Joe Smith unknown_kev_...@hotmail.com writes Now I looka at the other extreme. In theory, with copyright if you independently create a work that happens to be absolutely identical (say letter by letter or pixel by pixel), without even knowing about the other work, then the result is two works each with a seperate copyright that just happen to be indistinguishable. Of course that is scholarly theory, and the law in the real world is ill equiped to handle such a possibility. This, of course, can easily happen with photography :-) Similar photos, maybe. But pixel-by-pixel identical ones, I really doubt... -- New location for my website! Update your bookmarks! http://www.inventati.org/frx . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpkvynrZufn3.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Gunnar Wolf gw...@gwolf.org wrote in message news:20091125220338.gb24...@gwolf.org... Mike Hommey dijo [Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:30:58AM +0100]: More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) Depends on its source. If I were to draw a very-similar-but-not-identical Firefox logo, its copyright would be mine, but I would be breaching their trademark. The other part of this is that if if you are trying to recreate the original logo, while not directly copying it, the result could still be a derivative work, especially if you are reffering to the original during the creation. Paining replicators (people who attempt to recreate a painting, as closely as possible, but without try to pass the new copy of as the original (so they are not forgers)) are an example of an area where this concept often bites people. Even If I own the only authentic copy of a painting in the world, if the painting is recent enough to still be protected under copyright law, then I cannot have my painting replicated without permission from the copyright holder (which my be me if i am the artist, comissioned the work, or purchased/inherietd the rights to the work), since any such replica would be either a derivitve work under copyright law (should there be sufficent creativity), or be a considered an unauthorized copy under copyright law. Now I looka at the other extreme. In theory, with copyright if you independently create a work that happens to be absolutely identical (say letter by letter or pixel by pixel), without even knowing about the other work, then the result is two works each with a seperate copyright that just happen to be indistinguishable. Of course that is scholarly theory, and the law in the real world is ill equiped to handle such a possibility. (I speak loosly above, talking about a work having a copyright. I obviously mean that the authors or some other rights holder (such as in the case of a work for hire) being granted a limited monopoly on repdoucing the work, among other things.) For the record, IANAL, IANADD. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Ben Finney dijo [Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 11:04:33AM +1100]: I agree. What about MSN butterfly [1], ICQ flower [2], etc ? ICQ, THE FLOWER LOGO, THE ICQ NETWORK and/or other ICQ products referenced herein are trademarks and/or servicemarks of ICQ. […] No license is granted to you in this Agreement, either expressly or implicitly, to use any trademark, servicemark, names, or logos of ICQ, including ICQ and the flower logo. The question is, does one *need* the trademark holder's permission to use the trademark in this way? I thought using a trademark specifically to *refer to* the product was clearly allowed under trademark law in most jurisdictions. Would someone explain why that's not so? Hmm... Pidgin _refers_to_ each of those services when your contacts appear with the relevant logos; we are also not packaging a MSN-like server package (yeah, yeah, just imagine it was not tied to their domain name), so you could count this as referring to their site. However, we _are_ providing an application functionally close enough to each of the relevant services it implements - To the untrained eye, Pidgin could perfectly pass for the MSN, ICQ, Gmail or whatnot client. And if the program appears functionally close to the official one and has the official logo, it smells like a trademark breach in my book. -- Gunnar Wolf • gw...@gwolf.org • (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Mike Hommey dijo [Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:30:58AM +0100]: More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) Depends on its source. If I were to draw a very-similar-but-not-identical Firefox logo, its copyright would be mine, but I would be breaching their trademark. -- Gunnar Wolf • gw...@gwolf.org • (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Ben Finney wrote: This does, to my mind, permit using the mark to say ???this product supports that other product and/or service???, and doesn't need the trademark holder's permission. Whether other jurisdictions have a similar allowance, I don't know. To my knowledge this is a fairly common concept around the world. You have to be able to say these bags fit the X brand of vacuum cleaner or this software runs on Microsoft Windows. European trademark law (harmonized at EU level) explicitly recognizes this right. There's always debate about whether this allows one to use a logo or only the name of the brand. Is it necessary to show the logo instead of printing the name? Arnoud -- IT lawyer, blogger and patent attorney ~ Associate at ICTRecht.nl legal services http://www.arnoud.engelfriet.net/ ~ http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 02:08:14PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Eion Robb e...@robbmob.com writes: There's no “fair use” in trademark law AFAIK. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trademark+law+fair+usel=1 (Leads to URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)) Okay, so it seems (according to Wikipedia) that the USA does recognise a “trademark fair use”, which *does* allow referring to the product (using the mark “nominatively”): In the United States, trademark law includes a fair use defense, sometimes called trademark fair use to distinguish it from the better-known fair use doctrine in copyright. […] A nonowner may also use a trademark nominatively—to refer to the actual trademarked product or its source. […] This does, to my mind, permit using the mark to say “this product supports that other product and/or service”, and doesn't need the trademark holder's permission. Whether other jurisdictions have a similar allowance, I don't know. More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org wrote: More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) The initial mail in this thread was about CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 icons, so no, they're non-free. The pidgin-facebookchat icons seem free (GPLv3) though. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 05:52:22PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org wrote: More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) The initial mail in this thread was about CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 icons, so no, they're non-free. The pidgin-facebookchat icons seem free (GPLv3) though. Well, that's what they claim, but what is the real status ? A wild guess is that most icons that are present in packages have been picked from the web sites (or equivalent) themselves. These icons are most probably *not* under the license of the surrounding software. For example, I have serious doubts about the freeness of the search engine icons in iceweasel (the ones on the top right of the UI). Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org wrote: The pidgin-facebookchat icons seem free (GPLv3) though. Well, that's what they claim, but what is the real status ? A wild guess is that most icons that are present in packages have been picked from the web sites (or equivalent) themselves. These icons are most probably *not* under the license of the surrounding software. According to the comments in one of the URLs in the initial mail in this thread, the author of the facebook icon specifically created it for pidgin-facebookchat, so I imagine they specifically licensed it under the GPLv3 for pidgin-facebookchat folks. http://cubestuff.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/facebook-goes-tango/ For example, I have serious doubts about the freeness of the search engine icons in iceweasel (the ones on the top right of the UI). That is another matter that you should probably follow up with Mozilla or whatever copyright holder you can find. PS: no need to CC me. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
(Please don't send individual copies, we read them via the list) Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org writes: For example, I have serious doubts about the freeness of the search engine icons in iceweasel (the ones on the top right of the UI). Those are (as far as I understand) published by the OpenSearch protocol, and explicitly sent using that protocol by the search provider as “an image that can be used in association with this search content” URL:http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#The_.22Image.22_element. I think any party publishing the image via that protocol would have a hard time trying to argue that it's not allowed to be shown in the UI for that search provider. -- \ “For fast acting relief, try slowing down.” —Jane Wagner, via | `\ Lily Tomlin | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:31:30PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Those are (as far as I understand) published by the OpenSearch protocol, and explicitly sent using that protocol by the search provider as “an image that can be used in association with this search content” URL:http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#The_.22Image.22_element. I think any party publishing the image via that protocol would have a hard time trying to argue that it's not allowed to be shown in the UI for that search provider. It's not because the images are allowed to be shown in the UI that they magically become free under the DFSG. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Paul Wise wrote: According to the comments in one of the URLs in the initial mail in this thread, the author of the facebook icon specifically created it for pidgin-facebookchat, so I imagine they specifically licensed it under the GPLv3 for pidgin-facebookchat folks. http://cubestuff.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/facebook-goes-tango/ About icons, initially, on May 2008 Facebookchat icons have been released under CC-BY-SA-NC as we can see on the left side of that page. Then, on August 2009, included in the project Breakdance [1] and released under public domain. Until August 2009, they were in Debian but non-DSFG compliant. AFAIK a specific GPLv3 license for facebookchat icons doesn't exist. Current debian/copyright confirms that. Regarding Skype icons, same creator, same initial license [2] but they are not in Breakdance so they are still CC-BY-SA-NC. My question remains: Shouldn't Skype and Facebook logos be treated as MSN butterfly, ICQ flower, Novell Groupwise messenger, Yahoo messenger and many others logos? If they should be at the moment, _that_ Facebook icons are ok because under public domain and _that_ Skype icons not because under CC-NC but we can substitute them with other Skype icons. If they should not be please tell me why highlighting differences among all trademarks. Gabriele [1] http://cubestuff.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/first-release-of-breakdance-a-tango-internet-service-icon-collection-public-domain/ [2] http://cubestuff.wordpress.com/2007/11/25/skype-goes-tango/ For example, I have serious doubts about the freeness of the search engine icons in iceweasel (the ones on the top right of the UI). That is another matter that you should probably follow up with Mozilla or whatever copyright holder you can find. PS: no need to CC me. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Eion Robb wrote: I believe repacking upstream tarball to exclude logos is the way to go. You'll also want to remove the MSN/AIM/etc logos from Pidgin/Empathy/etc too, since they obviously fall into the same legal grey area. Unless they're considered fair use then everything should be good to go. I agree. What about MSN butterfly [1], ICQ flower [2], etc ? ICQ, THE FLOWER LOGO, THE ICQ NETWORK and/or other ICQ products referenced herein are trademarks and/or servicemarks of ICQ. Other products and companies' names or marks may be the trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners. No license is granted to you in this Agreement, either expressly or implicitly, to use any trademark, servicemark, names, or logos of ICQ, including ICQ and the flower logo. What's the difference among all these logos? Gabriele [1] http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/WWDocs/User/Europe/PressCentre/Licensee_use_of_the_MSN_logos.doc [2] http://www.icq.com/legal/end-user-license.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Gabriele Giacone losga...@libero.it writes: Eion Robb wrote: You'll also want to remove the MSN/AIM/etc logos from Pidgin/Empathy/etc too, since they obviously fall into the same legal grey area. Unless they're considered fair use then everything should be good to go. There's no “fair use” in trademark law AFAIK. But the rights reserved to trademark holders are somewhat limited. I agree. What about MSN butterfly [1], ICQ flower [2], etc ? ICQ, THE FLOWER LOGO, THE ICQ NETWORK and/or other ICQ products referenced herein are trademarks and/or servicemarks of ICQ. […] No license is granted to you in this Agreement, either expressly or implicitly, to use any trademark, servicemark, names, or logos of ICQ, including ICQ and the flower logo. The question is, does one *need* the trademark holder's permission to use the trademark in this way? I thought using a trademark specifically to *refer to* the product was clearly allowed under trademark law in most jurisdictions. Would someone explain why that's not so? -- \ “I like to skate on the other side of the ice.” —Steven Wright | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
There's no “fair use” in trademark law AFAIK. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trademark+law+fair+usel=1 :)
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Eion Robb e...@robbmob.com writes: There's no “fair use” in trademark law AFAIK. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trademark+law+fair+usel=1 (Leads to URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)) Okay, so it seems (according to Wikipedia) that the USA does recognise a “trademark fair use”, which *does* allow referring to the product (using the mark “nominatively”): In the United States, trademark law includes a fair use defense, sometimes called trademark fair use to distinguish it from the better-known fair use doctrine in copyright. […] A nonowner may also use a trademark nominatively—to refer to the actual trademarked product or its source. […] This does, to my mind, permit using the mark to say “this product supports that other product and/or service”, and doesn't need the trademark holder's permission. Whether other jurisdictions have a similar allowance, I don't know. -- \“Holy knit one purl two, Batman!” —Robin | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
I believe repacking upstream tarball to exclude logos is the way to go. You'll also want to remove the MSN/AIM/etc logos from Pidgin/Empathy/etc too, since they obviously fall into the same legal grey area. Unless they're considered fair use then everything should be good to go.
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
Hi, Luca Falavigna wrote: Skype’s trade marks and trade dress may not be used in connection with any product or service that is not Skype’s, in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among customers pidgin-skype is a third-party software, not provided or associated with Skype other than it needs Skype application to be executed, so it could not do use of the Skype logos. I think you are right concerning this license, but OTOH Skype has recently decided to make the UI part of their linux client open source: http://share.skype.com/sites/linux/2009/11/skype_open_source.html Apparently they want to keep just the communications protocol closed source, as some kind of a library. I think it should be researched what Skype means by making the UI open source before deciding this matter. I think it's possible they wanted to allow for integration with multiprotocol clients. Michael Below -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:53:17 +0100 Luca Falavigna wrote: When looking for possible sponsorship for pidgin-skype package (see [1], and follow-up messages), I looked at the images located under icons/ directory, they are very similar (if not perfectly identical) to Skype trademark logos, whose terms of use [2] state the following: Skype’s trade marks and trade dress may not be used in connection with any product or service that is not Skype’s, in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among customers pidgin-skype is a third-party software, not provided or associated with Skype other than it needs Skype application to be executed, so it could not do use of the Skype logos. It seems to me that here the problem is two-fold. First off, if these icons are confusingly similar to Skype trademarked logos, then trademark laws probably forbid unauthorized third parties to make use of them in connection with unofficial products (in the same field of application) which are not endorsed or approved by Skype Limited. By looking at the clause you quoted, it really seems that Skype Limited *explicitly* states that no such use will be authorized. This part of the problem alone could be enough to force the Debian Project to exclude these icons from the package. But as you can see from copyright file, those images are not provided by Skype directly, but from another source [3], which licenses them under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0: Files: icons/* Copyright: 2007, Jakub Szypulka - http://cubestuff.wordpress.com License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 I strongly believe Skype didn't allow author of those images to redistribute them under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0, and even if they are not directly taken from Skype itself but generated via SVG files not directly provided by Skype folks, they don't follow Skype terms of use, so they can't be distributed by Debian. This is the second part of the problem. If those icons can be considered derivative works (from a copyright law standpoint) of Skype logo images, then I am under the impression that the author of those icons (Jakub Szypulka) could not create and distribute them in the first place, unless he managed to get an explicit permission from Skype Limited. Moreover, even assuming that the above mentioned issue is absent or moot, the chosen license (cc-by-nc-sa v3.0) makes them non-free icons: this means that they anyway must be excluded from a package meant for the contrib section of Debian archives. This applies to pidgin-facebookchat package [4] too, which provides Facebook logo (see [5], facebook*.png files), probably taken from the same source [6], still not respecting Facebook terms [7]: You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission. This looks like a similar problem, indeed. I personally think a serious bug should be filed against the pidgin-facebookchat package, unless other debian-legal participants disagree. I believe repacking upstream tarball to exclude logos is the way to go. I agree. -- New location for my website! Update your bookmarks! http://www.inventati.org/frx . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpOYKCmSGtup.pgp Description: PGP signature
