Nathan writes: Interesting - I wonder if this is in any way related to the decisions > underlying the recent board statement on trademarks? Has the Foundation > pursued Wikipedia Review in the same manner?
I can answer that question -- it's wholly unrelated to the recent Board statement on trademarks. Our concern was not primarily about trademarks. Some background: The Wikipedia Art site, which was registered last year, was operated by performance artists who (apparently) hoped to use Wikipedia as a staging ground for a performance art project that involved creating articles on Wikipedia and creating links, both internal and external, that "proved" or "verified" the notability of the Wikipedia Art project. (This is documented on their website.) When the would-be artists attempted to use Wikipedia in this fashion, our community of editors shut them down very quickly. At the same time, however, some editors also expressed concern that the wikipediaart.orgdomain name would be seen as somehow affiliated with our projects, especially since the artists were trying to edit content directly on Wikipedia. So, after listening to our editors' feedback, we sent a letter to Wikipedia Art that was aimed, not to threaten legal action, but to outline what our legal concerns were, and to try to begin a negotiation to resolve the matter amicably -- ideally by switching the domain name over to us, but not by requiring any content changes on their site at all. We of course entirely support the site owners' prerogative to comment on and criticize Wikipedia. Our concern was that the Wikipedia Art project presented itself as a way for individuals to contribute to Wikipedia directly -- possibly by providing inaccurate reference information -- and, in doing so, might seem to express an affiliation with us. We note also that Wikipedia itself is hosts quite a bit of art, and reference materials about art, and there was some concern about how this would play out in search-engine results. We are pleased that the project, after we contacted them about this matter, has chosen to publish a disclaimer disassociating itself more clear from our projects, and that they have ceased in their attempts to use Wikipedia as a staging ground for their performance art projects. Unsurprisingly, the artists, who enjoyed making a fuss with their initial perfomance-art project, are hoping to make a fuss about our having contacted them at all. We anticipated precisely this reaction, of course, which is why our initial letter to Wikipedia Art, now posted on their website, talks about resolving the matter amicably and asks the artists to respect and understand our concerns. In other words, it's about the gentlest "demand letter" one can possibly write. We're pleased it led to positive results (the disclaimer). We always figured they might post our communications with them. With regard to Wikipedia Review: when I spoke with my friends at EFF about this matter some weeks ago, they asked the same question. I pointed out that we at Wikimedia Foundation actually rather love Wikipedia Review -- I for one read it for its entertainment value -- and that in any case no one reading Wikipedia Review would ever be under the impression that they're affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation. In a nutshell: Wikipedia editors brought the issue of the domain name to our attention, we corresponded with the Wikipedia Arts folks, raising domain name and trademark issues, and the result was a prominent disclaimer. No litigation was threatened or commenced. Last time I spoke with my EFF counterparts about this, the conversation was entirely friendly and collegial. We disagreed on some matters, but I pointed out that if someone decided to use the EFF website as a staging ground for a performance art piece, I'd entirely support their efforts to prevent anyone's confusing the artists' work with their own. Please feel free to ask me any further questions about this. --Mike Godwin General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
