Trademarks

[Simon]

About 6 months ago I posted this image;



on a wiki in my user space to acknowledge my OS. It was promptly removed.

I know it is not "my wiki", more than someone can call it "my internet", but it was the lame reason it was removed that puzzles me;

"Hey Simon, the image you just uploaded belongs to KDE, and we cannot have that on this wiki.
Anything uploaded to this wiki must be free to use under the GFDL."

I stated I thought this image is free to use. The same admin replied,

"Re: KDE logo. "KDE, K Desktop Environment and the KDE Logo are trademarks of KDE e.V" makes me hesitate. Then further below, it says that the image may be a registered trademark, and "You are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not infringe the rights to this trademark."
Basically, if you are using it on this site without their permission, they may not be happy about it. You'll have to ask permission."

Recently I looked at Ubuntu policy and they are more convoluted than anything. I am surprised that anyone can do much of anything with their restrictions and requirements. For example; scroll down this page and you can see they have outlined the wrong and right ways to even display the Ubuntu logo.

Meanwhile I got my logo replaced with something non-threatening to the admins on that wiki. It got replaced with this...



since KDE and Ubuntu want us to "spread the word" it seems to defeat any purpose making complications of legal issues using the logo. What are your thoughts? Should I write an email to KDE asking their permission to use a logo they say is free to use?

[Snowhog]

Yes. "When in doubt; Ask."

[kubicle]

1. Trademarks (registered or not) only restrict commercial usage of the trademarks, if you are using them non-commercially, you're not required to ask anyone's permission or to follow any restrictions placed on their usage by their respective holder(s).

2. Trademark holders can put restrictions on commercial usage (within limits), though...so if you are using trademarks commercially you may be required to ask for permission and/or follow trademark policies/licenses provided by the trademark holder(s). Generally speaking, OSS projects are (fairly) liberal with their trademarks even when used commercially (usually they just want to make sure the trademark is used fairly and correctly). Of course, there are some exceptions.

3. Don't know what the problem is with the wiki you are talking about, maybe they just wish to avoid trademarks altogether, have commercial interests woven in...or just don't understand trademark law. But the wiki owners can of course place any restrictions they want on images you can use on their site.

4. Trademark is separate from copyright, so while you may be allowed to use a trademark (either commercially or non-commercially), you may not be able to always use/copy a copyrighted image (like a logo). This isn't really an issue with the oxygen-kde-image, which is distributed under the quite permissive LGPL license: https://www.kde.org/stuff/clipart.php

[Simon]

Yes kubicle, if you click the image of the KDE logo in my first post, that is exactly where I got the image from. When I gave the wiki admin that address he came back with that second response. It was like he didn't bother to read, "The goal of this page is to provide KDE graphical resources to our supporters for promotional or personal use." instead he wanted to see the GNU or as he called it the goat image.

The only reason I brought it up at all after 6 months of being inactive, are people really that scared that a tiny icon is going to start a firestorm of lawyers? It isn't that important of an issue to me as it should be to those who want me displaying their banner.