Restrictive license on logos hampers "free advertisement"?

[matentzn]

I am wondering about https://github.com/tis-lab/closed-illustrations/blob/master/LICENSE.md.

As you can see here, these terms cause concern to people that are very "proper" when it comes to open source licensing.

I know I have mentioned this before, and I was rejected before, but because the discussion happened on slack its gone with the wind, so I want to persist it here.

I would like anyone (like users of SSSOM and Mondo) to be able to use the Mondo and SSSOM logos without any worry that they are violating licensing restrictions, and without the need to get written permissions. Using the logo in presentations by people not affiliated with SSSOM (example) is free advertisement, and aids promotion of our stack.

I hereby motion to move all Monarch associated logos to CC-0. Ideally there would be a standard license like CC-0-ND (its silly that there is not, it seems to most obvious license for logos), but in the absence of that..

[gouttegd]

Ideally there would be a standard license like CC-0-ND (its silly that there is not, it seems to most obvious license for logos)

That doesn’t make any sense. CC-0 is intended to effectively put a work in the public domain.¹

If you don’t want people to make derivative works from the logos, then you do not want the logos to be in anything akin to the public domain, so you do not want CC-0. You want something like CC-BY-ND instead (which is not a free-as-in-free-speech license, but no license that forbids derivative works can be a free-as-in-free-speech license).

-- ¹ The only reason that license exists is because some countries don’t recognise the possibility for authors to put their own work in the public domain. That’s the case in France for example. As a French person, I cannot say something like “I hereby put that work in the public domain” – well, I can, but such a declaration has no value at all. The only way for a work to enter the public domain in France is for the author to die and 70 years to pass.

[matentzn]

Ok, I guess I want CC-BY-ND without the need of writing somewhere that the logo is attributed to the copyright holder. Maybe this is optimistic. So you can add the logo to your site, your slide deck etc without making an attribution statement that is separate from the logo.

[gouttegd]

Ok, I guess I want CC-BY-ND without the need of writing somewhere that the logo is attributed to the copyright holder.

Not a lawyer, but my understanding is that this is simply not possible.

If you want to forbid derivative works, you need to retain for yourself the right to forbid derivative works. You cannot do that if you waive away your copyright, because your copyright is precisely what gives you the right to, among other things, forbid derivative works.

Let’s suppose you allow people to copy and use your work “without the need of writing somewhere that the logo is attributed to the copyright holder”. Presumably you still want people to preserve the mention that derivative works are forbidden, right? (You do not want the interdiction of derivative works to apply only to the first person who copies the work – that wouldn’t make sense, right?)

So you’d put a notice that would look like the following:

Use and redistribution of this logo is permitted, but modifications of any kind are not allowed.

Looks good? No. What would prevent anyone from redistributing the logo without the above notice? You do not forbid that.

OK, so you’d put a notice like that instead:

Use and redistribution of this logo is permitted, but modifications of any kind are not allowed. Any redistribution must preserve this notice.

All good this time? Still no. Upon coming across the notice, I would wonder, “wait, who wrote that notice, and what right to they have to tell me what I can or cannot do?”

See where I am heading? To be effective, your “do-not-modify” notice must include a statement asserting that the notice comes from the copyright holder – the only person who has the right to tell other people what they can or cannot do with the work. That is, you need… a copyright notice:

© 2024 A. U. Thor. All rights reserved. Use and redistribution of this file is permitted provided that the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. Modifications of any kind are not allowed.

The first line is there to assert that you do have the right to dictate what people do with the work. (I believe the “all rights reserved” bit is not strictly speaking necessary, but it doesn’t hurt.) And then, only once you have asserted that, you can indeed give people the rights you want them to have (use and redistribution) or not have (modification). The second line is ineffective without the first.

[matentzn]

If you want to forbid derivative works, you need to retain for yourself the right to forbid derivative works. You cannot do that if you waive away your copyright, because your copyright is precisely what gives you the right to, among other things, forbid derivative works.

I guess this makes some sense.. I guess CC-BY-ND is the way to go then, and for cases where I am the copyright holder I will just "squint" when I dont see the copyright notice when my collaborators / benign folks out there are using the logo without the attribution statement.