Back on the 9th September i received an Email from Terri Chen who’s title is “Senior Trademark Counsel” for Google.com regarding a snapshot of the Google Chrome comic, the Google Chrome icon and the Google Chrome logo being displayed on this site and i was told i could not display them.
Considering Google Chrome is an ‘Open Source’ project, and ChromePlugins.org is only serving to promote Google Chrome and is in no way monetizing from Chrome (It’s actually cost me nearly $1k for server, licenses, domain etc) i asked for clarification on what was allowed and not allowed.
To summarize, if you have never visited this site previously this was the issue:
and on the forum..
Terri Chen of Google replied today and the answer is None!
There’s thousands of websites out there displaying the Google Chrome “Sphere” and the Google Chrome Comic in both it’s original form as well as “Bastardized” versions of it and profiting off the content via Google Adsense.
Websites cannot display the Google Chrome Icon, the Google Chrome Comic or the Google Chrome Favicon. Seems pretty absurd to me having an Open Source project, and thousands of people wanting to promote and development for the platform to make it more functional and in turn gain a higher market share then tell them you cannot display any of the graphical elements on your site. It’s a bit like having a Jennifer Lopez fan site, and not being able to show pictures of Jenifer Lopez.
What is interesting is Wikipedia is displaying the logo on This Page that says it qualifies as fair use. Also i asked Terri Chen about the comic, telling her i have linked to Scott McCloud the creator as attribution for his work on every page the comic screenshot was displayed on from day one. I asked if this comic was released under Creative Commons, and the reply was:
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“I believe that the link to the Creative Commons license may not have been showing on the online version of the comic book. This has now been corrected, and here is the link: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/small_00.html. I’ve checked with the team, and they do not want to allow uses of the comic book per the license at this time.”
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After checking the main comic page, Google has just added a link. This part i do not understand, it was released under the Creative Commons but they don’t want to let people use it under Creative Commons at this time. Does anyone understand that statement?
I’m no law expert by any means I’m simply a person who took an interest in the Google Chrome Browser and wanted to develop for it, blog about it, promote it and share information that may help people.
So if you want to help Google develop Chrome and come up with new functionality to assist them gain market share in the browser space, i suggest you use the following logo and remove the ThinkFree Office text so you don’t impose on “Google’s” mark.
Go Figure.
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I have an image from Google Chrome Comic book on my site googlechrome.ru (Russian Google Chrome fans community) but I didn’t get such letter. I am not a lawer but I think that Senior Trademark Counsel of Google.com didn’t think about developers team of Google Chrome and only think about law. I think that it is wrong. We help Google Chrome to get popular, we really like this browser and we like Google services. It’s bureaucracy I think.
PS. Sorry for my poor English.
My gut feeling is that you are absolutely free to use the logo and everything else to your heart’s desire. That lawyer is just blowing smoke and couldn’t win the case. Go crazy and don’t worry would be my two cents worth. I too am not a lawyer, so do so at your own risk as course. Anyone else agree with me that the logo and comic are free for all at this point? CC is CC, read the license and weep.
Perhaps I should postscript that with * as long as you give credit to google in the fine print, after all it is a TM. Attribute them and it is fair use. The text you use “Google Chrome and Google™ is a Trademark of Google Inc - This site chromeplugins.org is not affiliated with or sponsored by Google Inc.” is to my eye enough to keep you free from danger.
Rudevich: Yes it doesn’t appear they thought about it much, after all it’s the third party developers who put in a lot of work promoting and developing the browser to make it better for everyone. Firefox is a great example, third party addons and extension are what make the browser even more attractive. Also don’t worry about your English it’s great, much better than my Russian.
Keen Observer: I completely agree with you, launching an Open Source project and and not allowing people to use any graphical elements to illustrate their involvement with the project is just plain absurd.
The “Senior Trademark Counsel” must of conversed with other people, because she had the official comic page modified today which would involve techs and getting the page approved. So whether she was blowing smoke or not, the opinion was obviously shared by others at Google and the message was clear “Web sites are not allowed to use Google Chrome images”.
I know little about the law when it comes to Trademark, but from all my research the images i was displaying would come under “Fair Use” as this site is not monetized and attribution was given on all pages the images were displayed.
It will be interesting to see if any of the big news and tech sites who are Premium Adsense Publishers and displaying the exact same images as i was get told to take it down.
It just shows poor taste on Google’s part, in my opinion. Sure, they may have a legal point or two, but this is an open source project we’re talking about. Not to mention the fact that you’re not making a penny off this site. I have read every page on your site, and they are all very positive towards Google and Chrome. If anything, this is an asset to Google/ Chrome that they should support in any way possible.
Shame on you Google.
If the comic is under a CC license, then you can use it as long as you follow the terms of the license! In this case: Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works. It doesn’t matter if the Google Chrome Team want people using the comic or not. The true copyright owner published it under the terms of that license, and they can’t take it back! I’m not a lawyer, but I am 99% sure of this. There was even a court case recently in the US where a CC license was validated. It was a similar thing… somebody wanting to take rights back, after they gave them away.
Logos and the rest are a bit different. Trademark law can be tricky… But I do think your use of them is fair use, and the disclamer at the bottom is quite enough.
OMG this is the FIRST time google made something that made me feel completely awkward :S
Where will I see updates of google chrome now?? This blog was pretty good!
:/
I am not a lawyer, but….
What I think Google’s lawyers are concerned about is not your use of their logos, source code or use of their trademarks per se, but that the way you displayed it on your website did imply that you were in some way affiliated to Google - at least to the casual observer (which is all trademark law requires - the small print at the bottom of your website would not be noticed by most surfers).
They’re entirely within their rights to try and stop you from making yourself look like an extension of Google’s brand. And I don’t think they’re wrong for insisting on it.
Wikipedia does have a picture of the logo, but it’s very clear from their website that they’re not Google. If your website was similarly clear (e.g. by entitling the website “3rd party chrome plugins”) then Google probably wouldn’t have a problem with you.
Good luck!
Colm: I did ask if i could change the wording on the comic to say “Unofficial site dedicated to the Google Chrome project”, and as you can see by my screenshot it would of been highly prominent as it’s above the fold and it’s the largest element on the page.
The answer was “No, they do not want to allow uses of the comic book per the license”.
There was no mention about making anything prominent as you mentioned, the letter was strictly about the images.
“Use of our logo requires express written permission. We must ask that you please remove the GOOGLE CHROME logo from your site.”
If you have the Google Chrome logo on your site which thousands do, and you do not have express written permission from Google.com you are breaching their Trademark.
So we have an Open Source project that nobody can display the image for, this is a problem.
I would suggest contacting the open source community in a variety of fora and suggest creating a 100% copy of chromium and google chrome published with a different name and different logo, but this very likely to happen none the less once chromium and chrome will be finished for Linux and Mac… or this has at least happened twice before, if I am not mistaken…
This part i do not understand, it was released under the Creative Commons but they don’t want to let people use it under Creative Commons at this time. Does anyone understand that statement?
I’m pretty sure you are misreading the statement. You completely changed the text of a panel of the comic–that’s a derivative work, which the license it was released under does *not* allow. I suspect that the correct reading of the quote is more like “per the terms of the license, we do not allow your use of the comic”. Enforcing the license it was released under isn’t underhanded or “taking back” any rights.
So we have an Open Source project that nobody can display the image for, this is a problem.
You seem to be confused about Chrome vs Chromium. Chromium is an open source project, with its own logo (the one you see on ). Chrome is a branded, trademarked browser based on the open-source project. You act like this is somehow against the philosophy of open source, but it’s almost exactly the same as what Firefox does: the Firefox logo and name are protected by the Mozilla Foundation, and unless you can use them *only* as allowed by Mozilla (thus the existence of IceWeasel and the like).
This is bloody ridiculous, Google. A clear sign you’ve gotten too big for your own good. Time to put your legal hounds back on the leash.
I think Hasbro or whoever made the “SIMON” electronic game back in the 80s should sue google for infringing on the look of feel of the Simon game and using it for the Google Chrome logo.
Simon on Wikipedia
Hmmm
The comic, the code and the logo are 3 different things, under 3 different licenses.
The comic - if it was publisehd under a CC license, and they “do not want to allow uses of the comic book per the license at this time.” they need to CHANGE the license underwhich it is published. You can take back rights, and change the license scheme, but if it is still licensed as CC, then you have all the rights to use it.
The logo - that seems to be copyrighted in which case you need permission to use it. You’d be able to use it under the terms Google allows - for example - it must be used with the original colours, no additional text added, no modifications like drop shadow etc. Coke has a really good page on their site that shows how and when the logo can be used…
The code - open source - depends on the license, but generally “open source” is licensed under the GPL, which means open! open! open!
Also big talk for a giant mega-corporation who originally released Chrome under Terms and Conditions stating the Google owned all right to everything created in it. Anyone else remember that? Any comments or blog posts or documents you created in Chrome would be Google’s.. people flipped out about it online after seeing it in the Terms and Google basically said “Oops.. our bad.”
Get a new legal department Google, this one is embarrassing.
Yes, the comic is released under a CC license, but here’s the thing: the way you used it violated that license!
Read the text of the license, particularly section three:
Tell me, in what way is cutting an image out of the comic and slapping your own text on top not creating a derivative work?
Tim - The license was changed, what you quoted is part of the license that was added about an hour before this post and after hundreds of websites had already adapted the comic.
So you tell me, how did this site or any others breach a license that wasn’t in place when we adapted the comic?
If you drove down a street at 80, and 2 weeks later they put up a 60 sign and sent you a ticket then you would be fine with that? I know i wouldn’t.
Look, whether Google is right or not in what they have done after speaking with several other developers and showing them the Emails (a couple well known for FireFox addons) the general consensus is “Chrome is not worth developing for”. So right or wrong, they have left a bad taste in many people’s mouths who could of done great things for the advancement of Chrome/Chromium. It doesn’t hurt us, it hurts the end users of Chrome the most as well as Google themselves.
Anonymous - same thing, you say: “Enforcing the license it was released under isn’t underhanded or “taking back” any rights.”.
It was not released under that license, it was switched to that after people had modified it including high profile news and tech sites not just this one. As for mistaking the Chrome/Chromium logo, no mistake it appears neither can be used. I’m waiting on a reply from “Terri Chen”.
You said the link was added later, not that it was changed, and the default copyright for any work is that you need permission to do anything at all. So if no other license was in place, then you would be, by default, not only forbidden from modifying it, but distributing it at all.
Is your claim that it originally explicitly listed a different license that allowed modification? Or did you assume, contrary to copyright law, that if you couldn’t find a license then you could do anything you wanted with it–which, to use your speeding example, is like doing 80 in a residential zone and then claiming that it’s allowed because you couldn’t see a speed limit sign while you were doing it.
Honestly, when I first visited this site, I believed it was an “official” extension to the chrome site. When the comic was prominent. I too wanted to use their logo and graphics. I looked through their license and it appear completely legal under the cc that it could be used. As long as attribution was given and no derivs.
I’m appalled they would send you and email and ask you to remove it. You even offered to make it clear you were not officially sponsored, that should have been the end of it.
I guess I have some images to clean up from my website before the hounds get on me.
They were absolutely wrong to change their license, they can not do that. It undermines the whole idea of cc.
I wonder whey think free office isn’t suing Google for taking their image. Clearly similar. I will be using the think free office logo instead I guess.
If content was under the Creative Commons license at one point, then it will always be. The link below explains this better.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_if_I_change_my_mind.3F
You therefore have every right to use the logo.
Anonymous: Tell me then, why don’t they go after the dozens of sites distributing the comic on a large scale under the CC3 and CC2.5 Share Alike license which allows you to adapt the the work?
Why don’t they go after the large tech and news site showing butchered versions of the comic making a mockery out of Google and Chrome? Scott the creator is even linking out to these copies. What about the sites profiting off the comic?
To go after a 100% non-profit site promoting Chrome, and trying to make it better for the users is completely pathetic. Yet they turn a blind eye to high profile sites doing the same thing in fear of negative press, that’s not defending their mark at all it’s just victimization. All Google has done is hurt Chrome at a time when market share is sinking by turning several developers off producing new functionality for the platform.
Now lets drop the comic for a second, and go on to the other images. Chrome is open source, and you are free to adapt and modify the work provided the source is cited correct? On the left of the page to download the .tar.gz it says the content is licensed under the CC 2.5 page and links here. Now download the Chrome source and decompile the dlls, and here’s a snapshot of some of the content:
http://www.chromeplugins.org/chrome-images.png
Looks like the images i used on here is included in Chrome’s source doesn’t it? If they can’t be used, that would mean if i or anyone else who adapted or ported Chrome itself would need to be strip all these out otherwise we would be distributing Trademark content doesn’t it?
Do i need to become a law expert and have to pour through an encyclopedia of law information just to produce something?
So the Chrome Sphere can’t be used on websites other than Google, well they better contact places like Wikipedia who is displaying it saying it’s fair use. Given the reach of Wikipedia that’s a lot of misinformation to be spreading.
Funny/Ironic: Search Google for “Chrome Icon” and the #1 result is Valleywag.com titled “Where did Google Rip off it’s Chrome Icon”
Hi,
I am a trainee in corporate copyright law (Also a fan of the Chrome browser) and based on their license, the comic book can be used on your site as long as you provide a link back (which you did); however, the Chrome logo is a trademark and is registered for authorised use only - yes, this include wikipedia, though, they may have authorisation.
All that said, if Google want to pick on the little guy, shame on them, especially when their is no commercial gain except site traffic!
This is a really good site and you’ve put a lot of effort into it but I have to agree with Google on this. Do you know of any other site that has the Google logo, Blue Red Yellow Chrome favicon or cartoon so prominently on the front page? It’s a bit unrepresentative and I think that is what Google is trying to avoid. JMHO.
I say GOOGLE can kiss my ass.If they wanna act like microSHAFT.Then we can treat them like microSHAFT. and ignore them and there products.GOOGLE.Be carfull.The backlash could hurt.
Hi,
When I use google chrome, some images on different web pages don’t display. I’m I missing a plugin? Or do I need to install a new upgrade. Please advise.
Derek
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