[Clipart] RE: Question on Tux trademark (fwd)

[Alan Horkan]

[I have sent a Carbon Copy (CC) of this message to the Creative Commons
(CC), please skip to the bottom for the license question that is really
bugging us at OpenClipart.org]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Bryce Harrington wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 13:12:03 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Bryce Harrington <bryce at osdl.org>
> To: clipart at freedesktop.org
> Subject: [Clipart] RE: Question on Tux trademark (fwd)
>
> Here's the info from OSDL's lawyers regarding the trademark status for
> Tux as it pertains to our usage.
>
> Bryce
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:01:09 -0700
> From: Diane Peters <dmp at aterwynne.com>
> To: bryce at osdl.org, nbpratt at osdl.org
> Subject: RE: Question on Tux trademark
>
> Bryce,
>
> Without quite understanding what a vectorized version of Tux is, anyone
> is free to use and modify the penguin, post it to the web, use it on
> their products, etc., all without asking permission from Larry Ewing or
> paying him any licensing fees.  The only caveat is that if anyone asks,
> you should give Larry and GIMP attribution.

That does not sound like public domain to me.

However it does sound exactly like the Creative Commons Attribution
License.  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

So far we have only been able to agree on Public Domain as an acceptable
license but we also want to keep track of Authors as much as possible and
it seems to me that we are in effect using the attribution license
although we are still keeping it simple and leaving open the option for
others to strip out and ignore that information.  Based on past
discussions it seem like the Attribution license would be acceptable if we
knew better how exactly we would be required to provide attribution.

The problem of giving attribution without it becoming obnoxious is an
issue that the Creative Commons must have to deal and given that we are
specifically using their Public Domain license perhaps they could give
us the answers?

http://creativecommons.org/learn/artistscorners/photographers

They are already requesting artists to contribute, so they must have given
some thought to how attribution can be given without it becoming
obnoxious in a large composition with many parts?



I guess I'll ask THE QUESTION:

By its very nature we expect many pieces of Clipart to be used to create
composition.

How can we use licenses such as the Attribution License and be sure that
the need to provide attribution will not become an obnoxious burdensome
advertising clause?


Thanks in advance.
Sincerely

Alan Horkan.