[OSM-talk] Unlicensed use of the logo in iPhone app?

[Nic Roets]

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Steve Coast <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
> Because trademark law is a different and parallel universe to copyright law.

I am not a lawyer, but I'll explain it a little bit. Trademark law
only restricts what you can do to sell your product or otherwise
attract attention. So for example, a logo that appears inside a manual
of a commercial product will rarely be restricted by trademark law.

> I don't know, but I don't think we particularly want to restrict use in the
> strict sense.

I think the matter is rather complicated. I assume your aim is that
OSM will become a source of information that is trusted by a large
section of the population within a decade. In 2020 every app developer
may want to use the trademark to sell his app. So choosing a good
policy now can prevent legal hassles later.

Wikipedia is already dealing with these issues, so I copied the most
important paragraph from their policy document.

"The Wikimedia Foundation's trademark policy attempts to balance two
competing interests. The first interest is the Foundation's need to
ensure that the Wikimedia Marks remain reliable indicators of free
content (as Richard Stallman has said, "Think free as in free speech,
not free beer") and source/origin. The second interest is the
Wikimedia Foundation's desire to permit community members, chapters,
and others with whom the Foundation works to discuss Foundation
projects and to accurately describe or communicate their association
with us."

I think we should also see our trademarks as an indicator of "free
content". So any product that overlays non free content onto the map
should be disallowed from using our trademarks. That should exclude
most ad supported products (as ads are typically non free), but we
should also consider explicitly disallowing ads.

> Trademark law is designed to do exactly what people here have
> mentioned and not let someone use our logo to confuse the public by, say,
> slapping it on a google maps app. So it's there if we want to use that
> power.
>
> Steve
>
>
> On 5/16/2011 12:40 PM, Josh Doe wrote:
>>
>> Can someone explain to me how OSMF can restrict usage of the logo if
>> it's CC-BY-SA? Or rather, if the original logo had a more restrictive
>> license (and copyright was owned by OSMF), and this logo is clearly a
>> derivative work, then this new logo can't be CC-BY-SA, can it?
>>
>> -Josh
>>
>> On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 2:28 PM, M∡rtin Koppenhoefer
>> <dieterdreist at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> 2011/5/16 Grant Slater<openstreetmap at firefishy.com>:
>>>>
>>>> On 16 May 2011 14:54, M∡rtin Koppenhoefer<dieterdreist at gmail.com>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there an informal policy? If I am displaying an OSM based map, am I
>>>>> generally entitled/allowed to use the logo ("OSM inside") in my
>>>>> application / on my website?
>>>>>
>>>> Sounds ok to me, you are promoting OpenStreetMap. What would not be
>>>> cool is claiming (or misleading) that your app/website/etc _IS_
>>>> OpenStreetMap or endorsed by OpenStreetMap.
>>>>
>>>> Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I do no represent OSMF.
>>>
>>> Yes, also to me it "feels" OK, but I think the best would be to get an
>>> official statement from OSMF when and how the logo can be used,
>>> because I think that it is good to encourage the use of the logo, but
>>> commercial users would not risk to use the logo if there is no formal
>>> permit to do so.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Martin
>>>
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>>>
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