Understanding Trademark
Trademark is a kind of intellectual property right. It is similar in some ways to copyright, and the two tend to fall into the same blanket category but there are some important distinctions between them. While copyright protects artistic expression, trademark is designed to ensure that consumers are able to easily identify the source of a good or service. In the United States, a federal law called the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. ch. 22 ) largely governs trademark protection. It provides penalties for those who use trademarks in a deceptive or confusing way. At Wikia, I often get questions about trademark versus copyright, and so here is an overview of what constitutes a trademark as well as how it may impact your community.
A trademark can be a …
Updates to COPPA
Privacy is important, and despite how the online world seems sometimes it can exist on the internet. This post is going to overview recent updates to privacy laws and provide you with important information about how your wiki may be impacted.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a United States federal law designed to limit the collection of personal information from people younger than 13 years of age. It was passed in 1998, and has been updated only once with a set of revisions that become effective July 1st, 2013. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees the application and enforcement of the law. It applies to any website or service based in the U.S.
One popular misconception is that COPPA absolutely forbids anyone…
Understanding Fair Use
Any discussion of copyright on the internet usually comes around to the subject of fair use. Some people (usually the owners of the copyright) conveniently forget that fair use exists, or tend to ignore it completely. Other people (usually avid reusers of copyrighted material) attempt to invoke "fair use" as a magic word that excuses any and all appropriation of content. The truth about fair use falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
Fair use is a limitation of copyright law that allows the public to freely use portions of a copyrighted work in certain situations. The internet as we understand it today would not be possible without the doctrine of fair use, and it is an important check on the reach of copyright. However, fair …
The CC-BY-SA License and You
Part of contributing to Wikia means that you agree to our Terms of Use (TOU). Within our TOU it states that when you make an edit to Wikia, you are adding your content under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License (CC-BY-SA). This license is the engine that makes wiki projects possible and there would not be a Wikia without it. But what does CC-BY-SA mean exactly? Let's break it down.
CC is short for Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing easy ways for people to share and use their knowledge and creativity while reserving some of the standard protections of copyright. They provide a number of model licenses like the CC-BY-SA that are designed to foster creativity, sharing, and innovation.
BY signifies t…
Hello Wikia Community
Hi All, I am Sean McGilvray the newest member of Wikia's Community Support Team. I was most recently a member of the legal department for the video game publisher NAMCO, where I spent a great deal of time handling intellectual property infringements. I have a legal background, and am excited to learn more about Wikia's CC-BY-SA license and how communities here work together to create open and free content.
I am also a huge gamer and am already a fan of the gaming room at Wikia's HQ. You may find me hanging out on role playing game wikis like Skyrim, Fallout, and Mass Effect or exploring the far reaches of space in EVE Online. I also play shooters like Halo and CoD, despite the fact I'm terrible at them. :)
When not at the controller, I spend…