*BSD News Article 47878


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From: irving@sys.toronto.edu (Irving Reid)
Subject: Re: possible mis-use of BSD daemon logo
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Message-ID: <1995Jul26.114011.23891@jarvis.cs.toronto.edu>
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References: <DC18u8.Fp3@reptiles.org> <3v4p2r$cen@abc.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 95 15:40:11 GMT
Lines: 31

windsor@ksu.ksu.edu (Rob Windsor) writes:
>jim@reptiles.org (Jim Mercer) writes:

>>have a look at http://Adult.SuperStore.ca/shoppe/
>>i'm not sure this is what the BSD daemon copyright holder had in mind.

The last place I saw that particular daemon was on Emily Way's web page,
http://www.io.org/~spamily (from memory; I can't get through to io.org
right now).

>The copyright holder is Marshall McKusick <mckusick@mckusick.com>.

>Drop him a line regarding such.  I have talked to him (e-mail) about
>"proper use" in the past, mostly to verify his approval with the use
>of them in my webpage (http://pobox.com/~windsor/).  He appeared
>interested in knowing where they were used on the web, and was happy
>that I contacted him myself asking for approval.


Note that copyright applies to a *particular* picture of a cute little
devil with a pitchfork, not the *idea* of same.  If the picture is
substantially different from other copyrighted works, there is
no copyright issue.

Now if the BSD daemon is a *trademark*, that's a whole different thing.
Then the idea of a cute little ..., *as identified with a business*,
is protected.  That means I can create whatever images of the daemon I want
(modulo copyright of particular images) as long as I don't try to use
them in a business context.

 - irving -