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Canonical Targets Ubuntu Privacy Critic
New submitter bkerensa writes "A member of Canonical's Legal Team recently sent a email to a critic of Ubuntu's privacy settings to insist he stop using the Ubuntu name and logo, even though it falls under 'fair use.' Micah Lee is the CTO of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and maintainer of the HTTPS Everywhere project. When Ubuntu began adding commercial results in its Dash search software, Lee wrote about the privacy concerns and created a site called Fix Ubuntu to show people how to turn it off. Canonical's legal department has now sent him a letter asking him to 'remove [the] Ubuntu word from you[r] domain name and Ubuntu logo from your website.'"
....but what would you expect???
..then there is something more serious broken in your decision making that command can fix. There are far better distros out there, no matter what you're looking for.
They've long since abandoned the values of the FOSS community... if they ever had them.
https://micahflee.com/2013/11/canonical-shouldnt-abuse-trademark-law-to-silence-critics-of-its-privacy-decisions/
Ubuntu just lost a lot of street cred. Not only is the response appropriate (remove the logo, nothing else), attacking a site dedicated to fixing your product via legal means is not the way to get the Open Source community on your side. When your main product is based on Open Source, that's kind of like shooting yourself in the leg and wondering why the gun is making you bleed out.
They can ask him to change the domain name and remove the logo, and it could be argued that they're just doing basic trademark defence, but they ought to know that he's under no obligation to make the changes. Of course, they ought to have known about and also considered the Streisand effect.
At least they were polite and not bumptious, censorious douche nozzles about it.
You're the one that is confused.
The fair use concept also applies to trademarks. You seem to be laboring under the false "virtual property" notion that much of the current pro-corporate propaganda focuses on these days.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
TFA does not mention threats being made ... so if all they're really doing is "asking", what is the problem?
Let them ask, and just answer "no"?
I see no story here until threats are made.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Is there a chance that somebody might mistake his website for Ubuntu, or is it clear that his website is talking about Ubuntu?
If Canonical is selling out its users' privacy for paid placement of results, then criticism is fair and use of the term "Ubuntu" is unavoidable (unlike actually using Ubuntu, which is completely avoidable). If Canonical is using legal threats to silence its critics who have truthful complaints, then all the more reason to do so.
People use trademarked terms and logos *all the time* when talking about the respective products. Sometimes they have a "duh" disclaimer when they do. I'm not sure if this disclaimer, currently on the site, is new or not, but it's clear:
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
No, not really "dickish"?
Aren't they obligated (by law) to protect their trademark, or risk loosing it?
IANAL but as I recall it, you can only keep a trademark if you actively protect it. If you don't, you may loose your right to keep it.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Large companies love to abuse their trademark and copyright protections to silence critics. It's unfortunate that there aren't SLAPP laws in every state. Angie's List was particularly scummy in that they threatened to come after me for reposting a review on a noncommercial blog so I could refute it outside of Angie's List. "Our reviews are copyrighted by us and we will sue the fuck out of you." That's how it works, and what's a small fry to do about it? In America, the person with the most money always wins, even if they ARE total assholes who are wrong in the eyes of the law.
Trademark fair use is something different; you have to show that the use is purely descriptive, using only the primary meaning (ie the everyday English language meaning), not the secondary meaning (ie identifying the product).
Wrong, trademarks can be used to identify the product or service. There is even case law to support this. See New Kids on the Block v. News Am. Pub., Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992) where USA Today's use of the New Kids on the Block trademark was upheld because it was used only so much as to identify them.
To be sure, this is not the classic fair use case where the defendant has used the plaintiff's mark to describe the defendant's own product. Here, the New Kids trademark is used to refer to the New Kids themselves. We therefore do not purport to alter the test applicable in the paradigmatic fair use case. If the defendant's use of the plaintiff's trademark refers to something other than the plaintiff's product, the traditional fair use inquiry will continue to govern. But, where the defendant uses a trademark to describe the plaintiff's product, rather than its own, we hold that a commercial user is entitled to a nominative fair use defense provided he meets the following three requirements: First, the product or service in question must be one not readily identifiable without use of the trademark; second, only so much of the mark or marks may be used as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service; [FN7] and third, the user must do nothing that would, in conjunction with the mark, suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder.
Maybe you didn't see the letter from the EFF's lawyer to Canonical yet because you didn't RTFA:
https://micahflee.com/2013/11/canonical-shouldnt-abuse-trademark-law-to-silence-critics-of-its-privacy-decisions/
You have NO IDEA what you are talking about, specifically in the legal aspect. This is a prime example of fair use.
I have never been able to stand running Ubuntu for more than a few minutes to begin with.
Now it's gone from technically awful to actively evil, it would be nice to be able to switch away as a statement, but that would require actually using it to start with.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You cannot just build a better car, and call it a Ford...
Now, the question is: is this guy selling/providing a better Ubuntu (not allowed...), or is he just criticizing Ubuntu (allowed).
It's still open source, you can remove whatever you want. That is the short-term immediate solution - and many have done so -- search how to remove the dash.
That said, it's a clear sign that Canonical doesn't value the privacy of its users. Their default is moving to "privacy disrespecting" and that means users will need to actively keep up on the latest "how to fix the privacy flaws in Ubuntu", a.k.a, it's broken by default. If Canonical continues down this path, more "features" will be incrementally added, and the removal will get harder as they'll get integrated in ways that cause other things to break when removed, etc.
So now Ubuntu's lawyers don't read their own legal policy http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy . I looked into it when I wrote a blog post about Canonical going bankrupt eventually.
Note:
"You can use the Trademarks in discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, provided that you do not imply endorsement by Canonical."
So not only is it fair use it also is ok under their own intellectual trademark policy.. Talk about one hand not knowing what the other is doing.
In those "best linux distros" I just discovered Qubes OS which achieves security (and privacy) through strong isolation.
See what kind of activities can be isolated, in a picture.
I think they got it right.
Not very portable: one need to run it on bare metal (along with 4GB minimum), nomads will bring along their laptop, at least (also: secure boot optional).
From Shuttleworth on down the line, Canonical is suffering a meltdown from the frustration of failure and loss.
Once the golden boy of the Linux revolution, Shuttleworth himself has devolved in the public eye to a petulant bully. Of course, he has only himself to thank for that, but such is frequently the trajectory of a highly driven personality, when denied the victories, fanfare and spoils they see themselves as deserving.
The Ubuntu project was founded on a "build it and they will come" approach to business. While that may work in the movies, it is a poor business model. In reality, "build it, package it, promote it and support it" are the pillars of success in the commercial world. Having failed to recognize the enormity of that task, Shuttleworth and company led themselves down a garden path, in regard to desktop Linux.
More recently, Canonical has sought to establish a vein of exclusivity in its offerings, at the expense of true Open Source principles. In so doing they have tried to make an end run approach to what Red Hat has done more openly, though recent times have seen suggestions that RH is, now, also taking more liberties with the spirit of "free and open".
Of course, Red Hat took its fair share of abuse when first it abandoned the desktop. Canonical seems headed down the same path, but in a slow, drawn out fashion, guaranteed to prolong the ordeal.
According to whois, ubuntusucks now belongs to canonical, and obviously they're not going to redirect it to their main page... (which would just give weight to the original message). And setting them up as a parking page would be boring and humorless.
But to their bug tracker, a pure stroke of genius!
> They cant pick and choose.
In fact they MUST pick and choose. To avoid losing their mark, they need to be proactive about instances that could be considered infringement.
They can allow certain users and decline others. What they can't do, under the law, is ignore potential infringement - they are supposed to either allow it or object to it.
One way they do that is through the published policy, which grants people the right to use their trademark in specific ways:
http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy
One thing their policy explicitly grants permission for is:
You can use the Trademarks in discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, provided that you do not imply endorsement by Canonical.
It seems to me this use was already authorized under that published statement of permission.
Canonical sells a product that is mostly developed and supported by other people, often for free. Many of the people here have developed or supported the Linux projects that Canonical distributes as Ubuntu.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.