[theme-reviewers] Are these contradictory???

[Chip Bennett]

The issue - and the distinction - is trademark vs copyright. GPL is a
*copyright* license, completely independent from trademark.

The clauses in the OP *are* contradictory, because the second clause claims
*copyright* protection as the reason that redistribution and resale are
prohibited. But the Themes are ostensibly released under GPL, which
explicitly allows the right to redistribute and resell, under copyright:

All of our themes are *protected by copyright*, and *may not be
redistributed* in any form or fashion.


The only way for the clauses NOT to be contradictory would be for the
second clause to say something like: "yes, under the GPL you may
redistribute or resell our Themes, but our Theme names are trademarked, and
may not be used in any redistribution or resale." (And even then, there
would probably be a fair-use defense; but that's outside the scope here.)


On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 7:08 PM, Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com> wrote:

> *@Otto*
>
>
> "True, trademark law is different. You can trademark the name of
> something and then use that to prevent others using the name. In which
> case they'd need to rename the thing to something else before
> redistributing or reselling."
>
> That's exactly what I said. And you don't have to actually register a
> trademark for it to be trademarked, that's not how trademark law works. If
> you create something, name it and then establish it publicly, it's
> trademarked. Albeit, not as "secure" as a USPTO trademark when it comes to
> defending it, but the law does respect it if you can reasonably prove that
> you were using it first.
>
> Nothing I said was incorrect, it was good and correct advice. You said I
> was wrong and then went on to agree with exactly what I said in the first
> place, ironic considering the subject title. It seems like your default
> position is to assume I'm wrong, even when we agree on something.
>
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wordpress.org/pipermail/theme-reviewers/attachments/20131019/5276edc6/attachment-0001.html>