Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

If you trademark something and don't defend it,
I don't think the best way to describe it is to
say it falls into Public Domain so that anyone
can use it and no one can Trademark it ever.

for one, trademark and copyright are two different
things. Trademarks are handled by the patent office,
not the copyright office.

For another, if it >does< fall into a state
similar to Public Domain, then keep in mind
that authors can use Public Domain works to
write new works that are "All Rights Reserved".
I'm not sure if there is a similar possibility
in Trademark law.

I don't think you can Trademark "devilboy"
and then allow it to lapse into public domain
such that no one can ever use devilboy as a
trademark ever again.

At most, a trademark can apply to a specific
product, and you can prevent anyone from using
that trademark to identify their similar product.

Kleenex (tm) tissue paper

The Kleenex trademark applies only to tissue paper.

There has been some stuff happening around the
"Apple" (tm) Music Company   and
"Apple" (tm) Computer Company

If I recall correctly, Apple music existed first,
and when Apple Computer came out, there was a suit,
and the result was Apple Computer could have its
own trademark as long as the company didn't sell
music.  Then it came up again recently when Itunes
became available.

The short of it is Trademark requires legal work,
whereas Copyright is automatic for the most
passive Author.

I'd recommend finding a Trademark lawyer,
telling him what you want to accomplish,
and follow his advice.

Sigmascape1 AT cs.com said:
>>
>>Message: 3
>>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 15:29:42 -0400 (EDT)
>>From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
>>Subject: Re: General Questions about Licensing
>>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID: <22315.206.67.17.2.1082575782.squirrel AT webmail5.pair.com>
>>Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>>
>>Howdy!
>>
>>Trademark has to be defended by the owner or
>>it can become public domain. If you try to
>>trademark "Kleenex (tm) tissue paper", and
>>then everyone starts calling all tissue paper
>>a Kleenex, then you, as trademark holder,
>>have to show effort in keeping "Kleenex" a
>>trademark, an adjective, or else it can fall
>>into a normal common noun in english use,
>>which is public domain, and not your exclusive
>>property anymore.
>>
> ---- To clarify, if I had an actual, fully legal trademark and did not 
> defend
> it, at some point it would become public domain? If this is true, then it
> solves a great number of potential issues for me. My fear was to establish a
> TM, formally, legally, and then if I allowed others to share my work, the
> trademark could somehow be taken away by a 3rd party person or company and
> then have them claim ownership of it. So, if I am understanding this
> correctly, a true legal trademark is either owned by a company or person, 
> or,
> if not defended, it falls into the public domain? As along as it can't be
> taken away used exclusively by another entity, that clears a lot issues.
>
> Thank you!!!
>
> MLF
>
>
>
>>Copyright does not have to be defended to
>>remain your exclusive right. If Alice
>>copies your work and you don't defend your
>>copyright, your copyright is still yours,
>>and if Bob then later copies your work,
>>you can still sue Bob.
>>
>>if your comic character is rampantly
>>copied by fan-sites, you can choose not
>>to sue them, and still sue Marvel if they
>>put your character in their storyline.
>>
>>Trademark and Copyright are just handled differently in the law.
>>
>>As far as CC working with trademarks, the problem is that
>>trademarks cost money, and must be defended (costing more
>>money), so if you're going to trademark something, you
>>might as well just get a lawyer, cause some boiler plate
>>from CC won't do much good.
>>
>>Copyright doesn't cost anything. It's automatic as soon
>>as the work is in fixed form. You can register the work
>>for $30, but it't not required for protection. Therefore,
>>its possible to use a CC boilerplate license on your work,
>>and you don't ahve to worry about expenses compared to
>>Trademarks.
>>
>>I think I have a section about trademarks somewhere in here:
>>http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html
>>
>>IANAL
>>
>>Greg
>>
>>
>>
>>Sigmascape1 AT cs.com said:
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>> I am new to the list. This is my first post.
>>>
>>> Over the years, I've found intellectual property issues interesting,
>>> especially in the entertainment world. As a comic book fan, its really
>>> interesting to read about issue relating to 'who owns what characters.' I
>>> realize that CC is primarily concerned with copyright issues, and the
>>> various
>>> ways to free or partially free content by using various licenses. What
>>> about
>>> trademarks? For example, is there any way to create, using my comic book
>>> interest, a character, establish a formal or informal trademark on the
>>> character, and then create comic book content that would be then licensed
>>> under some sort of CC license, and use CC or a CC-like license the entire
>>> way?
>>>
>>>>From what I have read while researching IP, a trademark must be 'defended'
>>>> so
>>>> that it is preserved. Wouldn't the same be true of a standard copyright?
>>>> If I
>>>> wrote a poem, and wanted to reserve all rights to it using the current
>>>> copyright law, wouldn't I have to defend it against rampant copying or
>>>> protect it against someone else claiming ownership?
>>>
>>> Hopefully, I am making sense. I'm just curious how far CC and CC-like
>>> concepts
>>> can be pushed when it comes to complete, end-to-end concepts relating to
>>> some
>>> IP.
>>>
>>> Thanks!!!
>>>
>>> MLF
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> cc-licenses mailing list
>>> cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
>>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>Draft the Gift Domain:
>>Put Free/Libre/Open/Public licensing
>>concepts directly into Copyright Law.
>>http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 4
>>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:16:17 -0400
>>From: Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>>Subject: Trademark (was Re: General Questions about Licensing)
>>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID:
>>    <87y8opnl2m.fsf_-_ AT unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
>>    
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>>I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I don't speak for
>>Creative Commons.
>>
>>My understanding of the question is whether putting something under a
>>CC license assures that the rights granted can be exercised regardless
>>of trademark.
>>
>>For example, let's say I create a comic book called "The Adventures of
>>SuperTroll". I register "SuperTroll" as a trademark*, and release the
>>book under (say) the Attribution-ShareAlike license.
>>
>>Would you be able to create another book called "The Further
>>Adventures of SuperTroll"? "SuperTroll Goes To Mars"? "The Death of
>>SuperTroll"? Or, say, would you have to create books called "The
>>Further Adventures of A Superior Bridge-Dweller"?
>>
>>The question gets more complicated if I also register SuperTroll's
>>image as a trademark. Even if you change all the names to "Superior
>>Bridge-Dweller" or "Excellent Deep-sea-fisher", using SuperTroll's
>>image may cause the dreaded "confusion in the marketplace".
>>
>>Frankly, I'm just not sure how this works. It seems to me that section
>>5 of the 1.0 licenses is pretty explicit in stating that no other
>>issues should get in the way of you exercising the rights granted in
>>the license. I'm not sure what the 2.0 licenses would mean, there. It
>>may be implicit in the other license terms that, hey, if the author
>>grants you the rights to do A, B, and C, they really mean you can do
>>A, B, and C.
>>
>>I know that in the Open Source arena, there's been difficulty with
>>trademarks for Open Source software. For example, the Mozilla
>>Organization has a trademark on Mozilla, Firefox, and some of the
>>logos used, and has some complicated rules about allowing the use of
>>those names or logos for non-official builds of the software.
>>
>>   http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html
>>
>>I guess the two answers here are these: for authors, if you want
>>creative re-mixing of your work, don't register trademarks. For
>>re-mixers, if the author has registered a trademark on something,
>>don't bother with trying to re-mix their work.
>>
>>~ESP
>>
>>--
>>Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>>Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
>>The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 5
>>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:13:41 -0400
>>From: Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>>Subject: Request to remove name
>>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID:
>>    <87r7uhj7xm.fsf AT unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>>So, here's a stupid literalist jailhouse lawyer* question, but it's
>>kind of bothering me.
>>
>>Looking at the Attribution license, section 4a. says in part:
>>
>>    "If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
>>    You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective
>>    Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as
>>    requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
>>    Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
>>    Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original
>>    Author, as requested."
>>
>>In other words, you have to take out the licensor's name if they ask
>>you.
>>
>>But 4b. says:
>>
>>    "If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
>>    publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or
>>    Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for
>>    the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the
>>    medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or
>>    pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied;"
>>
>>In other words, you have to provide the licensor's name if you're
>>going to exercise the license terms.
>>
>>I am no lawyer, but to me it doesn't seem to actually say, "Unless
>>they told you not to, in which case don't."
>>
>>I guess you could interpret a request to remove the licensor's name as
>>not "supplying" the name, but it's not really that explicit.
>>
>>Could this be used to arbitrarily revoke the license? "I want you to
>>remove my name, which you have to do under the license, but you can't
>>redistribute this work or derived works without my name, so you just
>>can't redisribute at all."
>>
>>~ESP
>>
>>* I am not an actual jailhouse lawyer. This is not jailhouse advice.
>>
>>--
>>Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>>Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
>>The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 6
>>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:28:10 +0200
>>From: "Jochen Bruening" <jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de>
>>Subject: AW: New SRR tag
>>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID:
>>    <IOEELJCDKHBDDEKHEBFFOEELCHAA.jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de>
>>Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="us-ascii"
>>
>>Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic) I
>>would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white coloring
>>would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>>
>>Jochen
>>
>>> -----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
>>> Von: cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
>>> [mailto:cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]Im Auftrag von Mike
>>> Linksvayer
>>> Gesendet: Freitag, 16. April 2004 23:12
>>> An: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>>> Betreff: Re: New SRR tag
>>>
>>>
>>> Evan Prodromou wrote:
>>> > So, there appears to be a new "Some Rights Reserved" tag here:
>>> >
>>> >     http://www.free-culture.cc/images/webcc.gif
>>> >
>>> > Is anyone else allowed to use that? I like it!
>>>
>>> I think a slightly refined version will be released with the 2.0 licenses.
>>>
>>> --
>>>    Mike Linksvayer
>>>    http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> cc-licenses mailing list
>>> cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
>>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 7
>>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:47:00 +0100
>>From: Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>
>>Subject: Re: AW: New SRR tag
>>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID: <3931334.1082638020496.JavaMail.robmyers AT mac.com>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>>On Thursday, April 22, 2004, at 01:28PM, Jochen Bruening
>> <jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de> wrote:
>>
>>>Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic) 
>>>I
>>>would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white coloring
>>>would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>>
>>The lzw patent has expired in most jurisdictions IIRC, and there's still 
>>very
>> little reliable support for PNG. GIF is well-supported and well-understood,
>> so IMHO it the best format for net graphics such as logos. JPEG is the best
>> open format in terms of adoption, although I appreciate it's very different
>> in aims and abilities from GIF/PNG.
>>
>>I agree about the B&W version, vector versions for print work would be good,
>> too. Or CC could release the vector sources and the community could make as
>> many versions in as many different formats as they like and give them back
>> through (say) a wiki.
>>
>>- Rob.
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 8
>>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:10:31 -0400 (EDT)
>>From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
>>Subject: Re: Request to remove name
>>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID: <8897.206.67.17.2.1082643031.squirrel AT webmail5.pair.com>
>>Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>>
>>
>>Evan Prodromou said:
>>>     "If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
>>>     You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective
>>>     Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as
>>>     requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
>>>
>>>     "If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
>>>     publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or
>>>     Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for
>>>     the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the
>>>     medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or
>>>     pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied;"
>>
>>> Could this be used to arbitrarily revoke the license? "I want you to
>>> remove my name, which you have to do under the license, but you can't
>>> redistribute this work or derived works without my name, so you just
>>> can't redisribute at all."
>>
>>evil thoughts, man.  ;)
>>
>>I can't imagine a court case deciding that a request to
>>remove an author's name allows the author to claim
>>infringement or breach of license/contract or whatever.
>>
>>The "intent" of the Author, in using that license, would
>>not seem to support arbitrary revokation.
>>
>>however, in a lawsuit happy world, it might be of
>>value to clarify the license.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 9
>>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 08:43:51 -0700
>>From: Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>
>>Subject: Re: AW: New SRR tag
>>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>>Message-ID: <4087E837.1070506 AT creativecommons.org>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>>
>>Jochen Bruening wrote:
>>> Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic)
>>> I
>>> would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white 
>>> coloring
>>> would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>>
>>All license buttons are available as gif and png.
>>http://creativecommons.org/license/ hands out references to the gif form
>>by default, but you can change the extension to png if you want, e.g.,
>>
>>http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights.gif
>>http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights.png
>>
>>Same will be true for the updated buttons once all 2.0 licenses are
>>released.
>>
>>--
>>   Mike Linksvayer
>>   http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>cc-licenses mailing list
>>cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
>>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>>
>>
>>End of cc-licenses Digest, Vol 13, Issue 19
>>*******************************************
>>
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-- 
Draft the Gift Domain:
Put Free/Libre/Open/Public licensing
concepts directly into Copyright Law.
http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html