[ILUG] tux violation

[Fergal Daly]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Paul Jakma wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Noel Carroll wrote:
> 
> > God yeah! Tux with a different body.  I feel sorry for the poor little
> > guy :(
> 
> it doesn't have an exact copy to be a copyright violation does it? similar
> is enough, right?
> 
> perhaps someone should quietly point out to them that their logo is
> illegal, unless they attribute Larry Ewing as the original
> creator.. (src/Documentation/logo.txt)

Did Larry attribute God as the original creator of penguins? There
aren't that many ways to draw a penguin in a limited area with a
limited palette anyway I doubt Larry the first person to every draw one
in the Tux style.

I think copyright applies to exact copies. It'd illegal under
copyright to just nick a Tux logo from a website and stick it on your
own, but there's no problem drawing your own version (copyright
-wise) because you've done the work youself. It's like there's no
problem expressing all of someone's opinions in your own words, you're
just not allowed nick their article word for word and print it in your
own magzine.

I think it's trademarks that aren't allowed look similar, the
idea being to prevent scams that wouldn't actually be prevented by
copyright law. This also has the effect that if 2 brands are in
completely different markets spaces it is possible to have overlapping
trademarks because there is no danger of consumer confusion, so in this
case if someone buy some of this food they're unlikely to think they
were actually getting a pizza with built in 2.2.16SMP kernel! Although
molecular computers might put an end to that ;-)

I think there have been some rulings that have started to erode this
freedom though, a MS managed to get a noodle company to stop selling
"Micro Soft" noodles a few years ago! All this is American of course, I
presume though it's pretty standard what with WIPO and that.

Fergal