FBI Gets Litigious With Wikipedia
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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I also hope Wikipedia wins, and yes this is a dubious case both by the spirit of the law and also due to all the other places where the seal has been used by the media in general. I'm sure there are plenty of cases where if you looked at movies and such special permission was not obtained for the symbol to be shown, and yet it was. There is probably plenty of precedent to fight with.Kiefer13 said:
HOWEVER, I do think that a lot of this might come down to the simple fact that the goverment has been wanting to find a way to bust Wikipedia for a while now. There have been a lot of accusations about the information it provides over the years, not to mention arguements that it's been used to effectively distribute child porn and such even if that was not it's intent. Perhaps the most famous incident of CP charges being the whole fiasco over the display of the original cover for the Scorpian's "Virgin Killer" album which featured a very young girl, naked, and in bondage, and Wikipedia refused to take it down despite numerous complaints (which was honestly the right thing for them to do overall when I look at the issue as a whole). That is to say nothing about the scientology conflicts due to the way the religion was covered and the claims that in describing the dogma of scientology they were violating copyrights (as I understood it).
In short, all of the successes of Wikipedia over the years (even if it has failed on many cases) have made it a lot of enemies, and probably also caused the goverment to view it as a pain in the neck. I can also see why the FBI might not want it's symbol used in a general sense (above and beyond confusion), especially if it's prescence (which allegedly requires their approal) could cause some people to reach the conclusion that the FBI agrees with information about them posted there, especially given that the information could be edited at any given moment.
At any rate, it's something to keep an eye on.
SVG for the win! I love vector graphics. How can they complain at a specific resolution when there exists a friggin' SVG file of their logo. Which I'm guessing is not that hard to come by, even if you don't get the one from wikipedia. Glad it ain't my money who's wasted on the FBI.Formica Archonis said:
Andy, just so you know, you are using the seal as lawfully as Wikipedia is, but don't be surprised if the G-Men get petulant even more and put you on the terrorist watch list. No more flying for you!
I don't really see the issue; it's not like Wikipedia is pretending to be the FBI.
Let's hope that the CIA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency] doesn't feel the same way about their logo being on a Wikipedia page.
Let's hope that the CIA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency] doesn't feel the same way about their logo being on a Wikipedia page.
Talk about over-reaching the law... as the guy in the article noted the law is there to prevent people from making fake badges, setting up fake FBI officers for cons (I've been watching too much Leverage), fake letter-heads, etc. It is not there to prevent people from showing people what it looks like in an encyclopaedia online or not.
Well.... They should've just made it into a bitmap image instead of a vector graphics image. Oh, and low-res too. That should solve the problem, right?
Top form to the BBC is the source provided by the OP:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10851394
"Yeah, turn out the FBI thinks it's illegal for wikipedia to do this... but We'll jsut do it too"
But this makes me wonder... is this possibly down to some US official being pissed about the security breaches by wikileaks... and ACTUALLY being dumb enough to think Wikipedia and Wikileaks are somehow related organisations?!?! Oh fuck if that is true that is all kinds of fucked up stupidity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10851394
"Yeah, turn out the FBI thinks it's illegal for wikipedia to do this... but We'll jsut do it too"
But this makes me wonder... is this possibly down to some US official being pissed about the security breaches by wikileaks... and ACTUALLY being dumb enough to think Wikipedia and Wikileaks are somehow related organisations?!?! Oh fuck if that is true that is all kinds of fucked up stupidity.
After doing a wee bit of research, this may or may not have legal foothold to stand on, depending on how the FBI moves forward. By law, any document, image or file that is considered a "United States Work" (ie created by and for the US government) does not have copyright attached to it, unless another law supercedes, such as National Security laws, or the law quoted, that precludes the willful use of imagery to impersonate the government. Seeing as Wikipedia doesn't seem to be willfully telling users to "fake being a FBI agent, lol!", I don't think there is alot of room to stand on that.Andy Chalk said:
HOWEVER: It is possible for the government to gain copyright protection for any logo, by either filing for it itself (as I understand it, unusual, but not for logos and seals, so maybe), or, if the file was created by contract FOR the government, the creator can give his/her copyright TO the government. So... I dunno, I'll have bounce it off of my copyright laywer friend.
Additionally, any "United States Work" is still protected by copyright outside of the United States. Depending on the situation, they could be told to take it down because they are located outside the US (Corporate is in California, but could the servers be targeted?), or told to not display the image outside of the US (a pain, but doable), or have another country on the WIPO Copyright treaties sue on thier behalf (again, unlikely, but it's politics!)
As a freelance graphic designer, I do find this facinating. I'm personally going to be following this story, as anything that involves copyright impacts me directly. On one hand, I'm all for free access to information; on the other, I know that when I've had my copyright rights infringed, I was furious, so I'm really torn on the subject. Thanks, Escapist, for bringing this one to my attention!
Oh, and because it's relevant: this is the "CENDI Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright: Issues Affecting the U.S. Government" [http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#41]. A bit of dense legalese, but a good read if you're into that kinda stuff.