[Freedombox-discuss] copy-right/-left of visual logo & identity unclear

Robert Martinez mail at mray.de
Tue Oct 2 08:01:21 UTC 2012


On 02/10/12 03:08, Nick M. Daly wrote:
> Robert Martinez <mail at mray.de> writes:
>
>> I designed the logo for the freedombox foundation.
>>
>> I'm not entirely sure about how the foundation decided to treat that
>> copyright issue.
> Robert, did you create the box-hopping-gnu or the box-butterfly?  This
> can't be legal advice (I'm no lawyer), but: as creator, you'd (probably)
> hold copyright under US law, unless it's a work for hire, which could be
> inferred from your first sentence.

The butterfly logo is my contribution to the project and I transfer all 
possible rights to the FreedomBox Foundation.
If it was code I would just use GPLv3, but Artwork, especially logos 
can't or shouldn't be handled that way.

>
>> So I wouldn't treat it as public domain, creative commons or copyleft
>> for now.
> If you hold the copyright on the images, have you considered making your
> work available under a (free-culture-approved) CC license or the GPL?
> That'd clarify and prevent these sorts of questions in the future.
>
> Nick

I'll make it available under whatever licence the FBXF needs it.
I just want to raise awareness of the danger of loosing control over the 
identity here. If we release it under CC anybody could (for example) 
create a FBX-fork with non-free software and use our exact logo. On the 
other hand there might arise problems shipping a "completely free" FBX 
with a non-free logo (Firefox debate comes to mind).
I'm not 100% percent sure on this and think a proper discussion before a 
final decision would be a good thing to do.

debian for example chose to have two different logos: 
http://www.debian.org/logos/
an "open use" logo and an "official" logo.
This does not seem to work either since debian does not use the official 
logo for some reason - not even on the official homepage :P


-Robert




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