Avoid Trademark and Copyright Enforcement Action

[bone-baboon]

To avoid trademark and copyright enforcement action it is probably a good idea to remove the files in the Questionable Files section below.

Character Trademark and Copyright

Fictional characters can be protected by copyright and trademark. This is an explanation that uses Disney characters. https://info.legalzoom.com/article/legal-use-disney-characters

Questionable Files

Some of the files used by cowsay's -f option appear to be questionable. I looked at all the files in the /share/cows/ directory and the following files were the ones I identified as questionable. All of the following charters are likely trademarked and copyrighted (however I have not verified that).

• beavis.zen.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head
  • Uses trademarked character name and character

• bud-frogs.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_Frogs
  • Uses trademark and characters

• cheese.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_%26_Cheese
  • Uses trademark character name and character

• ghostbusters.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters
  • Uses trademark and no ghost logo

• hellokitty.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Kitty
  • Uses trademark and character

• luke-koala.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Skywalker
  • Uses trademarked character name

• milk.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_%26_Cheese
  • Uses trademark character name and character

• ren.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ren_%26_Stimpy_Show
  • Uses trademark character name and character

• stimpy.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ren_%26_Stimpy_Show
  • Uses trademark character name and character

• telebears.cow

  • https://brand.berkeley.edu/uncategorized/telebears/
  • Uses trademark

• vader-koala.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader
  • Uses trademark character name

These two may be fair use:

• moofasa.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufasa#Mufasa

• vader.cow

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader

[xuhdev]

Why is it an issue to use trademark names? Are users of cowsay confused by these names to mistakenly take cowsay as a work from Disney?

[bone-baboon]

@xuhdev

Why is it an issue to use trademark names?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Usage says "The owner of a trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement.".

This could be a potential problem for authors and maintainers of cowsay repositories that infringe on trademarks.

This could also be a potential problem for operating systems that distribute cowsay. There are many operating systems distributing cowsay. https://repology.org/project/cowsay/versions

Preventing legal action seems like a simpler thing to do than dealing with legal action.

[xuhdev]

If someone "owns" a trademark means no one else can use that phrase, it would produce absurd results. Would you say "I drank a bottle of dark drinkable liquid with bubbles" instead of saying "I drank a bottle of Coke"? Can't a novelist or a journalist mention any trademarks in their writings? :)

Maybe you can wanna check out this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement#Factors

If the chance of consumer confusion is remote, I don't see trademark infringement. Likewise, if I don't repeat the phrase but cause consumer confusion, I can be liable (Say I name my movie "Star War" instead of "Star Wars").

[bone-baboon]

https://github.com/tnalpgge/rank-amateur-cowsay/pull/4 has relevant information for this pull request.

[apjanke]

Closing out this old conversation.