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Mozilla Cracks Down On Merchandise Sellers

Posted by timothy on from the likelihood-of-confusion dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine reports that the Mozilla Foundation is cracking down on those selling unofficial Mozilla-branded merchandise. This takes the form of an open letter addressed to retailers of goods that bear the Mozilla name or logos. The letter suggests that the Foundation are willing to work with those selling Mozilla wares, as long as they get a cut and the retailer isn't operating in the US, Canada or Mexico, where they would be competing with the Foundation's own Mozilla Store. Threats of legal action for non-compliance are issued, albeit with friendly overtones. This open letter is part of the Mozilla Foundation's campaign to better enforce its trademarks, an effort that began when the Foundation was launched in July. In a related move, the Foundation announced that the new Firefox artwork is not open-source and can only be used in official builds or those sanctioned by the Foundation - this has led to debates about whether Firefox is free enough to be included in the Debian Linux distribution."

6 of 565 comments (clear)

  1. Um... by NeoGeo64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't Mozilla a generic name used in all headers for web browsers? I'm pretty sure IE6 uses the word "Mozilla" in it's information headers...

    What are they trying to do? Copyright a generic name?

  2. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know I'm missing something, but shouldn't they be encouraging this form of free-adversiting?

    1. Re:Why? by mingot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, not if it competes with a business interest that they already have. Try going to a rock concert with some freshly printed T-Shirts and then explaining to the nice people that they should be happy you're bootlegging their shit because hey, free advertising!

  3. Good for Them by Hideyoshi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    More power to them I say. Free Software shouldn't be equated with the right to brazenly steal from those who provide it.

  4. Relax by CaptainSuperBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They have to defend the Mozilla trademark, I'm sure the lawyers told them to cover their ass and do it already, so they did it. It doesn't seem any more complicated than that.

  5. No free brand/goodwill by fembots · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess it is fair to put a stop to such brand dilution. No matter how free a product is, it is still important to maintain its identity based on some standards/rules. Without such control, the brand/goodwill will eventually become less valuable.

    Some might argue if you're doing something for free, why do you want to protect your branding. Well, branding is what consumers look for in making a decision (most of the time), and if a company can maintain a strong branding, it is able to continue pushing its mission/objective using the same brand, and consumers will continue to use products based on that mission/objective.

    If Sun didn't control the use of naming of Java, we might have too many different version of *Java*, and eventually consumers couldn't find one to stick to and the standard might be lost.

    Imagine if people start printing Slashdot logo all over all kind of vibrators...

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.