On Mon, 01 Nov 1999, Joshua Chamas wrote:
> Doug MacEachern wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Kent, Mr. John wrote:
> >
> > > Doug,
> > >
> > > I asked O'Reilly's permission to use the "camel and feather" without
> > > acknowledging them, and they said NO, see letter below from Edie Freedman.
> >
> > gad, I hate politics. Tim O'Reilly gave us permission to use the camel in
> > the mod_perl logo two years ago. I'm can't remember if that means every
> > site that uses the logo also needs to include the permission text like
> > perl.apache.org does.
> >
> > > I say mod-perl needs to adopt a non-proprietary logo. Wasn't
> > > there a page somewhere that had competing designs? Perhaps
> > > I can use one of them.
> >
>
> This kind of stuff is awful. They own the image, so you
> have to ask them each time you want to use it.
>
> But here's the rub... perl & the camel are synonymous,
> and they don't own perl, just the camel. Just like Kleenex
> became generic, one would be able to argue that the camel
> is a generic image for perl, used just about everywhere,
> in fact one can't really express a perl project w/o the
> camel image because of how generic it has become. The camel
> is not O'Reilly after all, it is perl, and perl is owned
> by the world. Because O'Reilley has not gone to any lengths
> to separate the camel from perl, the camel is perl.
IANAL but I think you're way off base here. Perl didn't come before the
camel, O'Reilly created the camel image for Perl. Unfortunately my Camel
book is in the house, but all my other ORA books have a disclaimer in the
front:
The association between the image of a <insert animal> and the topic of
<insert book topic> is a trademark of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.
> A commercial entity would have to use the above argument to
> use the camel to market its own perl products, books, etc.
>
> But what about an open source project, or a web site
> that happened to use perl ? It would be hard for O'Reilly
> to argue damages, because there are no revenues relating
> to perl. Further, a successful argument can be made that
> open source projects, that use the logo actually benefit
> O'Reilly increasing the sales of its perl books.
Companies (actually, their lawyers) don't argue damages, they argue
dilution in these cases.
> Back to mod_perl. I'm not convinced that a camel with
> feathers sticking out of its ears is a camel. Its a
> flying camel, more of a pegasus, which is not trademarked,
> might be a mythical creature that you can pull out of
> Arabian Nights, and represents a complementary, and
> non-competing product. Worst case scenario, reflect the
> camel, since the perl camels rendered today are always
> facing left, or create a desert scene with a camel, sun,
> and feather, which is not just a camel either, its a
> desert scene.
That wouldn't stand up in any US court. Ask Randal how courts listen to
sensible arguments <g> (sorry Randal!).
> I think the spirit of this is that if you are not
> competing with O'Reilly's commercial activities
> with respect to perl, then don't worry about it.
I think really you should politely ask Tim (he's very approachable, albeit
a bit paradoxical for my liking) for a nice lawyer's reference saying the
use of the camel for a mod_perl logo is OK. Won't cost him a fortune
(probably a few hundred dollars!) and it'll make life a whole lot easier.
As I said, IANAL, but I try and pick up what I can from their responses
(which are few and far between) on slashdot.
--
<Matt/>
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