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Wikipedia Threatens Artists For Fair Use

Posted by kdawson on from the ought-to-know-better dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Can a noncommercial website use the trademark of the entity it critiques in its domain name? Surprisingly, it appears that the usually open-minded folks at Wikipedia think not. The EFF reports that Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern have created a noncommercial website at Wikipediaart.org intended to comment on the nature of art and Wikipedia. Since 'Wikipedia' is a trademark owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, the Foundation has demanded that the artists give up the domain name peaceably or it will attempt to take it by legal force. 'Wikipedia should know better. There is no trademark or cybersquatting issue here,' writes the EFF's Corynne McSherry. 'Moreover, even if US trademark laws somehow reached this noncommercial activity, the artists' use of the mark is an obvious fair use.' It is hard to see what Wikipedia gains by litigating this matter, but easy to see how they lose."

8 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Open-minded folks at Wikipedia? by Bashae · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I the only one who laughed after reading this?

    1. Re:Open-minded folks at Wikipedia? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Am I the only one who laughed after reading this?

      Disclaimer: I have an account on Wikipedia by the same name as my Slashdot username and have contributed fair use music clips.

      You may be able to point to Wikipedia not being open-minded. From the purging of webcomics to being attacked by the co-founder, you may be able to point to things they've done that seem really really controlling and closed minded.

      But look at what they've done and accomplished. Look at how they've come under attack themselves for fair use or having 1/5 of the world's population blocked from you.

      They have established a totally free online encyclopedia. No ads. They have had to balance quality with quantity. They have established rules that define what is encyclopedic. I would wager that in the past year they are more linked to than any other domain on Slashdot. Their Google rankings reflect this.

      If you are criticizing them because they are not as free and open as Richard Stallman, fine. But know that I have downloaded their articles and put them into a MySQL database at home and you are free to access them online and use them as an invaluable resource. Would they have been as successful if they had taken a more open and free stance? They walk a fine line between their control and community control and I think they've done a fine job with their success as evidence.

      --
      My work here is dung.
    2. Re:Open-minded folks at Wikipedia? by mangu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They have established a totally free online encyclopedia. No ads. They have had to balance quality with quantity. They have established rules that define what is encyclopedic.

      I look at Wikipedia's failings more in wonder than in anger. They gave us one of the most valuable sites in the web for free, that's true, and we should be grateful for that. But then they go and shoot themselves in the foot.

      What I have tried to do about this is to bring my contribution in a positive way. Whenever I see something that strikes me as being too pedantic at Wikipedia I try to correct it, often with good results. I have removed several of those ridiculous warning boxes from their articles, and, more often than not, no one put the boxes back.

      Take, for instance, an article about a fiction novel or short story. The best reference about that, the book where it was first published, is cited in the references. How does that article lack references? Or boxes complaining that in some way the article is not written in a style suited for an encyclopedia. Well, if you think so, do us a favor, stop complaining and *show* how it should be written.

  2. Wikipedia's Perspective by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    iI is hard to see what Wikipedia gains by litigating this matter but easy to see how they lose.

    It is easy to see how they lose if they don't defend it also.

    Ok, not to defend them but just to get you thinking about their perspective, they are attempting to protect their name. Not profits or anything really evil, just their name.

    What would you say if I wrote a mischievous program and hosted it at iwikipedia.org? Wouldn't you want them to be able to go after me and shut me down?

    Ok, so that's an extreme case ... now imagine I use that same domain to host a mirror of Wikipedia.org and push to steal their market share. I advertise and insert tiny little advertisements and I am commercial. And suddenly the good folks at Wikipedia are out of luck. Wouldn't you want them to be able to protect that which they've established?

    So for malicious intent or even just to protect what they've created, I think they should be able to sue wikipediaart.org but I would hope they could just ask them to change the name to wikiartrights.org or artonwikis.org?

    They probably would qualify for fair use if the site wasn't a wikimedia site. In this case, Wikipedia is concerned about people misunderstanding that the site is hosted and part of the wikipedia suite (or commons or whatever they call it). I think they would have no problem with the name if it had a different layout/format or if the name was different and it looked just like that. I don't know how this qualifies as fair use and Wikipedia may have a point in their fear that people would misunderstand the site.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  3. Defend it or lose it by itsdapead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quoth Wikipedia itself:

    A trademark typically becomes "genericized" when the products or services with which it is associated have acquired substantial market dominance or mind share. The term is legally significant in that unless a company works sufficiently to prevent such broad use of its trademark, its intellectual property rights in the trademark may be lost.

    IANAL but, as I understand it, if Wikipedia are too free and easy about defending their trademark they won't have a leg to stand on when "Wikipedia Britannica" or "Microsoft Wikipedia" appear.

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  4. One-line explanation of Wikipedia's behavior. by Eevee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's better to have a judge rule "it's fair use" now than have a judge rule "you didn't defend your trademark" five years from now.

  5. Re:Lock by u38cg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that's fair. A trademark, as we should all know, must be defended where it's use could be considered infringing. Use of the trademark to identify the service in question is perfectly acceptable, as in wikipediasucks.com. However, the cited domain, wikipediaart.org could quite easily be taken to be affiliated to Wikipedia, particularly since the site is running a Mediawiki install. I can't say I blame them for going after this, though I hope they don't overkill it.

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    [FUCK BETA]
  6. Re:Apple Art ? Microsoft Art ? Bank of America Art by iYk6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I saw the summary title, I immediately thought of paypalsucks.com. However, this is different. Nobody would think that paypalsucks.com was run by Paypal (*), and it is a commentary on paypal, so it is not infringing trademark. Wikipediaart.org sounds like something run by Wikipedia.

    * Interestingly, googlesucks.com is owned by Google. They took the domain name to dampen criticism visibility. See: googlesux.com