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Pam is a Board Member of the Open Source Initiative and the principal of Chestek Legal in Raleigh, North Carolina. She works with creative communities, giving practical legal advice on branding, marketing, and protecting and sharing content. Pam has authored several scholarly articles, has a legal blog at Property, Intangible, and was formerly an adjunct professor at Western New England College School of Law.
Authored Comments
It's a really interesting area, which is why I like working in it so much. When you dig in, I think there is a lot that communities are already doing, we just have to recognize them and be prepared to advocate to a court that they are adequate. All FOSS projects exercise quality control over the software in one way or another, which is the most important element, so that's a good start. It's actually also not a problem that is unique to FOSS -- courts have dealt with in with church groups, community organizations, fan clubs, etc., so it's not entirely unknown territory.
You raise an excellent question. Trademark law doesn't really cope well with informal non-hierarchical business models, so there are potential risks no matter how the trademark ownership is managed. There should be an article in then next IFOSSLR that gives my views on how to do it.
Sorry you can't make it to Raleigh for the conference, it will be interesting!