Wikipedia talk:Logos

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Logos produced by the U.S. Government

The claim "as works of the federal government, they are automatically in the public domain" is not referenced. Is this an assumption or is there a reference which can back this up. I'm thinking specific of the NASA insignia which is one of the few images that NASA actually has any regulation around. Other agencies have restrictions on their logo/insignia usage as well, mostly to control misrepresentation of the agency. NASA extends its restrictions to cover souvenirs and other commercial items as well due to the popularity of the insignia. Where did this statement that US government insignias are public domain come from?--RadioFan (talk) 12:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it is Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code, as cited at Wikimedia Commons. Feel free to verify that, as I haven't read the statute myself. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 says: "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." Is the lack of copyright protection the same as being in the public domain?--RadioFan (talk) 11:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. If something is not protected by copyright, it is in the public domain. J Milburn (talk) 11:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The lack of copyright does not mean there is no trademark protection. For that matter, Congress could pass a unique law protecting a particular logo. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

While appears to be the case with NASA logos. This general permission does not extend to use of the NASA insignia logo (the blue "meatball" insignia), the retired NASA logotype (the red "worm" logo) and the NASA seal. These images may not be used by persons who are not NASA employees or on products (including Web pages) that are not NASA-sponsored.--RadioFan (talk) 22:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Those webstatements are rather pointless though. What counts here is the law. For the NASA logo/insignia that would be Title 14 cfr part 1221, with violations punishable by Title 18 U.S.C. 1017 for the seal and punishable by Title 18 U.S.C. 701 for other insignia, flags, program identifiers etc. The foundation has once stated that we (as community) will only have to concern ourselves with copyright when it comes to image usage. This is because as an encyclopedia/educational(/partly journalistic) work, the work has some freedoms that go a lot further than the freedoms of a commercial user or a user that would have intent to deceive. Also note that there is a big difference between what is an APPROVED usage and that which is a punishable usage. The federal code has usually been interpreted as requiring some intent to deceive in order to be punishable. While the line for what is approved is explicitly strict, the line for what is punishable has explicitly been left a tad vague. Basically only a court of law will be able to define such borderline cases exactly. In a court of law, it would probably go between a law to protect a seal, and the basic freedom of speech of a work like this encyclopedia of the commons. Based on the wide provisions and leeway there already is for copyrighted material in the educational and journalistic world, it is not a stretch to believe that similar limits would be taken into account when weighing "unapproved usage of government seals" against the freedom of speech. The better question is always, do you want to be the first person to end up in court trying to find the borderline between the two. :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Replacing logos with storefonts

Should non-free fair-use logos be deleted from Wikipedia when a free panorama image of a storefront is available? This seems to be the rationale of a recent FfD request. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends. This issue should be assessed in a case-by-case basis. The rule of thumb is: Non-free logo in a free image is still non-free! (Actually, such an image may have been mis-licensed in the first place and have never been eligible for a free license!)

Perhaps the main concern in this regard is whether these two types of image (logo and storefront) may co-exist in an article. Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria policy mandates that if one of them can replace the role of the other, then only one can exist. Hence, if the photo of storefront can fulfill the purpose, then only the storefront photo should be placed in the article. However, I can think of a lot situation in which such an image cannot fill the role of logo itself alone. For example, if the default view is so wide that the logo may be lost in it, or if the lighting condition alter the look of logo, then that panorama image may not be used.

Fleet Command (talk) 06:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Um, no. It completely depends on the context and location. If I take a picture at a football game and one of the players is wearing a jersey with a logo on it, the concept of de minimus applies and the photo is still non-free as the logo is a very small portion of the image. — BQZip01 — ^talk 15:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Burger King#Front logo for some relevant discussion involving some bold edits to remove logos. Powers ^T 21:52, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Substantive change to the Guideline

Per the header, "...Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus", I have reverted Zip's edit until consensus is reached. As this guideline can have an effect concerning content across the encyclopedia, careful consideration should be given before allowing any changes that might guide editors to making content decisions that are not in line with the complex issues concerning "...copyright, trademark and editorial concerns". I advise caution before making any changes that will relax the Guideline concerning when and where logos can be used. 184.199.236.20 (talk) 13:34, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

This information/justification is already used across thousands of images through the template explicitly mentioned on the page. There is no reason to suppress this information already within consensus. No one needs permission to make appropriate changes to policy/guideline pages. — BQZip01 — ^talk 15:03, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem to me is that it's so poorly worded that I have no clue what you are trying to say. The major change argument isn't the issue to me, but I fail to get the whole geometric shapes in a larger work ar not copyrightable thing. It just doesn't make sense. Some clarification over what you are trying to say?--Terrillja _talk 21:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

If you make a red circle it isn't copyrightable. If you make 2 circles and make them overlap, it still isn't copyrightable. If you make 3 circles..4,5,10,20, etc. But at some point, those circles form another shape (like a dinosaur), then you aren't using those circles as circles, but instead as components to form a larger image. The same goes for text. If you use text as text for a logo, it cannot attain copyrightable status. If you use those characters to convey an idea (such as in a book or article), then you can copyright them. Likewise, if you can use those letters to form something other than letters, they too can attain copyright.

Perhaps some assistance on phrasing is in order? The basic concept is already mentioned in the tag mentioned on the page. — BQZip01 — ^talk 23:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Rephrased. Feel free to change if you feel I'm in error. — BQZip01 — ^talk 23:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The "Uploading non-free logos" does not actually say how to upload

Ok, so great to know that it is alright to upload a non-free logo. All the logos must have gotten on company wikipedia entries somehow. This section is missing information on what form to use to upload a non-free logo. It is entirely unclear how to properly upload a non-free logo, and what template to use. This needs to be clarified. --Nhtahoe (talk) 17:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Bizarre wiki bug

For some reason, under "Editorial concerns" the first subsection heading, "Advertisements", doesn't display, even though the section is shown in the Table of Contents at the top of the page. I've found through experimentation that naming a section or subsection "Advertisement" or "Advertisements" triggers this bug. Until the bug is fixed, I've temporarily renamed the section "A d v e r t i s e m e n t s", which looks weird, but allows readable text to display in the section heading. — Quicksilver^{T @} 04:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't seem to have that issue with either my iPad or Firefox. Buffs (talk) 06:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

If you can't see this, AdBlock is probably blocking it. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/33297 for more details. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 19:08, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That's what it was. I'm running Adblock Plus on SeaMonkey, and since Wikipedia doesn't display ads, it never occurred to me that the plugin would be trying to block anything on Wikipedia, even though I've been editing for over 6 years. Easy fix. I'll just disable Adblock Plus permanently for all wikipedia.org pages. — Quicksilver^{T @} 04:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)