Branding issues?

[bytorbrynden]

We might need to re-brand this project, to make sure we don't violate the Trademark and Brand Usage policy that Khan Academy has in place.

I'm going to send an email to Khan Academy with a couple questions about their branding guidelines, and to tell them that we're more than willing to make any changes that they need us to.

@pamelafox, since you're a part of the Khan Academy team, feel-free to provide any info that you can, about this.

[bytorbrynden]

Here are the questions that I'm hoping can be answered:

• First Question: Since the app was created for Khan Academy, and it relies (heavily) on the Khan Academy Computer Science API, does Khan Academy have the right to take-over the project at any time?
  • While the team behind the app was not contracted by Khan Academy to create the app, and we do not receive any form of payment for it, I still feel that this is a valid question.
• Second question: Should I discontinue the use of “KA” and “Khan Academy” in the project title?
  • The app is often called “The Khan Academy Contest Judging System” or “KACJS”, however, according to the Trademark and Brand Usage policy that I found on Zendesk (https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/202263034-Trademark-and-Brand-Usage-Policy), that might suggest that we’re affiliated-with/endorsed-by Khan Academy; I know for a fact we (Spark), are not affiliated with Khan Academy, and we’re not endorsed by Khan Academy.

The answers to these questions might be simple, however, since everyone in the team behind the app is still in high school, we’d really like to avoid getting into any sort of legal trouble with Khan Academy.

[pamelafox]

My colleague suggested just sticking "Unofficial" in front of the title, and that should protect you on both fronts.

(Note: We are not lawyers! That's our best guess. None of us have any take-over plans :)

[bytorbrynden]

Awesome @pamelafox, we can definitely do that!

And we really appreciate all the continued support that we've been receiving from you @pamelafox, as well as all the support we've received from @kevinbarabash.

[MrMagma]

If we renamed to "Contest Judging System for Khan Academy" would that fix any legal issues? It doesn't imply affiliation with KA and "Contest Judging System for Khan Academy" is slightly less of a mouthful than "Unofficial Khan Academy Contest Judging System".

[bytorbrynden]

The part that we are/were violating(?), is/was Bullet Point 5 under Prohibited Use of Marks:

[Unless you have explicit written permission to do so, you should NOT] Use Khan Academy Trademarks in the naming or promotion of an app or other service, nor may organizations combine their brands with Khan Academy’ to create a new brand (e.g., "Khan EduCo Academy"). Instead use the following language: "Viewer for Khan Academy". This makes it clear that the offering is not from nor supported by Khan Academy.

@JavascriptFTW your title follows that "language", so it's probably best that we do that.

Another point we'll need to make somewhere (as a disclaimer, perhaps?), is the fact that we're not affiliated with Khan Academy in any way (I assume that's what we'd say?)...

Khan Academy is a friendly organization, and I realize that they probably wouldn't go after our tiny little project, but, it never hurts to exercise a bit of caution.

[Noble-Mushtak]

This issue doesn't seem to be much of an issue anymore and it's been inactive for a month. I think we should close it so more attention can be focused on the other issues.

[bytorbrynden]

I'm keeping this issue open, as I'm not done re-branding.