Drawings similar to well known products. Copyright problems?

[Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net>]

Hi everybody!

I recently package and uploaded openclipart [1], an open clipart
library. The package has just been accepted by the ftpmasters and is now
in Debian.

I just received a bug report (#289764) from William Ballard about 
problematic copyrighted pictures, that looks like similar to some well 
known company products.

I should admit that I don't know anything about such copyright law, 
however I think that as long it is just a drawing without any 
copyrighted logo, it's not a problem.

Any lawyer there that have enough knowlegde to give an answer?


Below is a list of the images with comments for each of them, that has
been prepared by William Ballard:

mobile_phone_01.png
-> Probably violates some Mobile phone company's copyrighted image
-> Looks a lot like a Nokia

battery_01.png
-> Violates Duracell's copyrighted image

orange_burner_01.png
-> Violates Bic's copyrighted image

masonic_square_and_compass_01.png
-> Might be copyrighted by the FreeMasons

smilies/*
-> The smiley-face logo is copyrighted by somebody.
-> He might have a case here.  I don't know the precedents.

rubik.png
-> Is the rubik' cube image copyrighted?

hummer01.png through hummer07.png
-> Images of specific models of vehicles might be copyrighted

packman_01.png
-> Pac-Man image might be copyrighted

wagon_01.png
-> This type of red wagon is made by a particular company
-> Its likeness may be copyrighted

All this images are available on http://temp.aurel32.net/openclipart
though it may be illegal to distribute them :)

Thanks,
Aurelien


[1] http://www.openclipart.org/

-- 
  .''`.  Aurelien Jarno	              GPG: 1024D/F1BCDB73
 : :' :  Debian GNU/Linux developer | Electrical Engineer
 `. `'   aurel32@debian.org         | aurelien@aurel32.net
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