[theme-reviewers] GPL-Compatibility

[Greg Priday]

A lot of the really good images on Pixabay are from Unsplash. This one, for
example, was created by Drew Patrick Miller, but there's mention of the
license on his site (his footer copyright would suggest the images aren't
CC0).

http://pixabay.com/en/mixing-desk-mixer-slide-control-351478/
http://drewpatrickmiller.com/

So should we track down the authors of all photos we use and ask them to
verify their license?


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 10:23 PM, Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, there's an especial ignorance in the WordPress community as well
> about trademark law.
>
> I think the root of the problem still lies in people's misunderstandings
> of what open source and free actually mean.
>
> We're moving from a mindset of anything being released under GPL being a
> complete free-for-all, to a more mature understanding that just because
> someone releases a photo, code or whatever under a GPL-compatible license
> does not grant free reign to do whatever you like with it, like
> re-releasing or using its mark in a manner that has you claiming ownership,
> causing brand and consumer confusion in the marketplace.
>
> I've also seen some behavior where even if someone understood copyright
> and trademark law (for the most part), they simply didn't care anyways,
> brazenly disrespecting other people's rights.
>
> Imagine if another group was to create a CMS, totally unique and separate
> from WordPress, but, they decided to name it WordPress. Can you imagine how
> confusing that would be, especially for the average Joe (general
> population) that's not tech-savvy?
>
> WordPress would be on top of that like crazy, not because they're trying
> to be bad guys, shutting down the competition or spitting in the face of
> innovation, because it infringes on their trademark. And it's not just a
> personal matter either, WordPress has a legal and ethical obligation to
> protect its trademark (especially after registering it with the USPTO), to
> protect the community, to make sure they know where to find the official
> WordPress instead of downloading possible fakes that contain malware or
> getting scammed out of money.
>
> And it doesn't matter if that other CMS is better, and good for them if it
> is, but, they need to come up with their own unique name for it and build a
> brand on that instead of infringing other people's hard work building up an
> established trademark.
>
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>


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