[OSM-talk] Draft Trademark Policy

Simon Poole simon at poole.ch
Sat Aug 5 08:34:40 UTC 2017



Am 05.08.2017 um 09:15 schrieb Jochen Topf:
> On Fri, Aug 04, 2017 at 07:07:47PM +0200, Simon Poole wrote:
>> Sorry but that is hyperbole, after the 13 years of OSM the number of
>> domains affected amounts to something between 30 and 40., not 100s. The
>> policy is rather clear on what is allowed and what not, and if there are
>> further questions we can address that in the FAQs.
> My number was not referring to domains alone, but also to other
> projects, software etc. See below.
>
> And, no, the policy is not clear at all. Maybe to you with your
> background but not to me and not to many others I would think. The
> discussion here shows that it isn't. There are obvious further questions
> that I am asking in this discussion and you are not answering them but
> referring me to a FAQ that will be written in the future, maybe after
> the policy has been decided on? Why are we having this discussion here
> at all? Can somebody please at least try to answer my questions?
>
>> Why would we be interested in the names of github repos/projects? We are
>> mainly interested in use of our marks in commerce and similar/related
>> activities and registrations that convey exclusive rights (domain and
>> company names etc).,
> Ah. You are "mainly interested in". Maybe you should put that in the
> policy then... And write down what the difference is between "commerce
> and similar/related activities" and things that are purely hobby, which
> I suppose is okay? We have been through this discussion a thousand times
> in relation to copyright and the non-commercial clause in some CC
> licenses and why it is bad because we can't differentiate between
> commercial and hobby use really. Why is this different here? Can we
> differentiate? The policy as it stands now certainly doesn't seem to
> make a distinction there.
>
> Back to the question of software and github repo names: The policy
> doesn't even mention "software" or "apps" as a category. So I look for
> the best fitting case which seems to me 4.3 "Publications" for which I
> would need a license. Is this a wrong interpretation? Do I understand
> you correctly that I can have a software with the name OpenStreetMap in
> the title in a github repo and it doesn't fall under this policy?
To clarify this, the main point is that use of the marks should not be
confusing, see 2.

If somebody went off and created a OpenTreetMap github organisation,
then yes, I would consider that problematic, but for your typical repo I
just don't see issue, not really different than say subdomains which are
at least from a text pov very similar, see 4.1.

Wrt tools and so on, I wrote in the answer to you "... and we may add a
similar clause as we have for remixed logos ." (see 3.5) We need to
discuss this in the LWG (as any other items that have been brought up),
and decide if it needs additional text, and if yes, what exactly. If we
decide that we don't want to explicitly address such use (given all the
other special cases we have listed rather unlikely), and you are still
unhappy then it makes sense to complain further.

As to hobby vs commercial use: they as you say, tend to be one in OSM,
but that is exactly why certain things, that can't easily be undone,
need to be controlled more than others. The harmless hobby project can
be the commercial enterprise owned by your favourite big US conglomerate
the next day. 

The difference I was trying to make was more using a mark in a repo
name, directory, small tool or similar which is likely nominative use or
very close to it and for example using the same as the name of the app
on the google play store (regardless of if is commercial or hobby or
whatever). While the former may be fuzzy, the later is not.  And as
people that have for example made "OpenStreetMap" and "Open Street Map"
and other variants  apps available via google know, that is not a change
of policy. 

Simon 


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