[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 12:46:18 -0400
kpneal at pobox.com wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 05:29:57PM +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > On Sat, 2014-03-15 at 16:54 +0100, Fabian Keil wrote:
> > > Masayoshi Fujimoto <m.fujimoto at rocketmail.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Even personal use, I need permission?
> > > 
> > > Legally it depends on the country you live in.
> > > 
> > > In many (most?) countries you do not need the FreeBSD foundation's
> > > permission to use the logo on a T-shirt for personal use.
> > 
> > In German we have a saying for legal gray areas: "Wo kein Kläger, da
> > kein Richter!" I didn't find a translation for this idiom.
> 
> I know about as much German as any other single-language native
> English speaker. But there is the more general English expression
> "Better safe than sorry."
> 
not really, the German translates more to 'no risk, no fun'.

> Trademark law varies country to country. Under US law the owner of a
> trademark is _required_ to protect that trademark or risk losing it in
> court. Sometimes when trademark owners do this (by having a lawyer
> send a letter) it gets very bad press on, for example, slashdot.org.
> Lots of people end up talking about how eeeee-evil trademark owner
> are because they did what they, under the law, were required to do.
> So we have in those cases a no-win situation for the trademark owner.

Was it Jack Daniel's which wrote a letter to an 'abuser' in the 'proper'
way. The abuser was nicely told that he did something wrong and it was
suggested to find a solution which fits both. This gave the brand a
very positive image even by protecting its brand.

Erich