OpenShot Video Editor

"OpenShot" logo license

Asked by Luca A. Rossi

Hi!

I'm creating the Italian version of the Wikipedia article "OpenShot Video Editor". I'd like to upload an image of the blue "OpenShot" logo.
Unluckily, in the Italian Wikipedia it's forbidden to use a "Fair use" license.

Could you release the logo under this license: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Attribution ?
(For example, the GPL logo uses this license http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gpl-v3-logo.svg )

Thanks in advance.

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OpenShot Video Editor Edit question
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Jonathan Thomas
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Helen McCall (wildnfree) said : 		#1

Hello,

I thought the OpenShot logo was covered by the GPL 3 because it is part of the package which is all GPL 3.

The GPL 3 logo isn't part of a package as far as I know. And so is separately licensed (as with Ubuntu and Debian logos).

I know the translations for OpenShot have to be in a separate package because they are not under a GPL3 license - they are under a BSD license.

Perhaps Jonathan can comment?

Helen McCall

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Luca A. Rossi (larossi) said : 		#2

From this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OpenShot_Logo.png
"This is a logo of an organization, item, or event, and is protected by copyright and possibly trademark. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, of logos for certain uses involving identification and critical commentary may qualify as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. Certain commercial use of this image may also be trademark infringement."

The logo was uploaded by JonOomph, that is Jonathan's account on Wikipedia.

Revision history for this message
Luca A. Rossi (larossi) said : 		#3

From this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OpenShot_Logo.png
"This is a logo of an organization, item, or event, and is protected by copyright and possibly trademark. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, of logos for certain uses involving identification and critical commentary may qualify as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. Certain commercial use of this image may also be trademark infringement."

The logo was uploaded by JonOomph, that is Jonathan's account on Wikipedia.

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Luca A. Rossi (larossi) said : 		#4

(sorry for my double comment)

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Best Jonathan Thomas (jonoomph) said : 		#5

Hi! Thanks for the question. In theory, the name "OpenShot" (trademark pending) and the logo are owned by me, and not part of the GPL. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm doing my best to answer this question. =) If I was to GPL the logo, it's possible that it would be in violation of the OpenShot trademark for people to use it... which defeats the point.

In fact, I'm pretty sure most open-source projects don't open-source their logos or identity in any way. Here is an interesting snippet from the mozilla website:

"Although our code is free, it is very important that we strictly enforce our trademark rights, in order to keep them valid. Our trademarks include, among others, the names Mozilla®, mozilla.org®, Firefox®, Thunderbird™, Bugzilla™, Camino®, Sunbird®, SeaMonkey®, and XUL™, as well as the Mozilla logo, Firefox logo, Thunderbird logo and the red lizard logo."

Since I own both the copyright and trademark for OpenShot, I officially give permission for you to use the logo on the Wikipedia page. That should be good enough for now. =)

Thanks!
-Jonathan

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Luca A. Rossi (larossi) said : 		#6

Thanks Jonathan Thomas, that solved my question.