Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On 2004-09-09 06:30:55 +0100 Paul C. Bryan <email@pbryan.net> wrote:
Has anyone at Debian sought permission from the Mozilla Organization
to use
the Mozilla trademarks in its packages? In your legal opinions, would
it make
a substantive difference?
I feel that Debian uses MF's trademarks to honestly identify the goods
as those of the Mozilla Foundation. Under English law, that seems to
mean that we do not need permission to use the trademarks because this
is not an infringing use (Trade Marks Act 1994, s10(6)). I suspect
that international agreements mean the US has a similar situation, but
I don't know that. I am not a lawyer, neither.
Nathaneal Nerode disagrees with my interpretation, according to
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/02/msg00279.html - he thinks
it must be the official unmodified version. That probably is a
restriction on modification.
The Firefox icon may be a more obvious problem, but I don't remember
its full license details.
[...] When a package is resricted by
trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with
it?
Trademark registrations are annoyingly peripheral to the package, like
patents. With copyright, it is an property put in all software that we
can't ignore. Trademarks can exist, but someone could have a licence
covering everyone redistributing debian and we need not know about it.
It is only when we discover a holder who successfully enforces
trademarks that it becomes clear-cut. In the recent past, we've been
pretty lucky that agressive trademark holders use non-free copyright
licences too.
Here's a fun idea: Trademarks are also limited by field of use. If I
remember correctly, there are only live firefox US trademarks covering
internet software, fire suppression systems and boats. I encourage
everyone to search their local trademarks, then sell other firefox
merchandise and promise to donate profits to the Mozilla Foundation
when they issue blanket trademark licences to all free software. Of
course, this is not legal advice: you get that from lawyers, not
devious hackers.
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Visit the AFFS stand, .org village LinuxExpoUK, 6-7 Oct
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