Oh trademark and copyright law… and the age old question of whether there is actual “new ideas” at all…
and to make things even more complicated, we are also dealing with creative commons here:
The open source website specifically states that all its content is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 – thus also the orginal art-work of the logo itself does. In Copyright-terms, even if you consider it a derivative work (which I do not think is the case, actually), this is fine – you are allowed to do that.
HOWEVER, they have a separate trademark on the logo itself which limits how that specific logo can be used. Whether or not you violate a trademark has less to do with the origin or actual work of the art but whether someone might mistake your logo as that for the other and thus mix up these “brands”. I doubt that you could really fabricate this claim here: they aren’t alike enough to really be mixed up, nor would that have any consequences on the market standing of either brand.
Either way, should the decision go towards this one, I’d contact the OSI and ask them to confirm they also don’t believe there is a problem here and I think they’d probably be agreeing to that. Don’t think that’s an actual problem.
I come to a similar conclusion around the apple wallpaper logo:
A vectored area has been with us since the early days of 3d-modelling, but as a flat surface it has become modern very recently. As a reminder you can’t trademark/copyright patterns themselves, otherwise doing something “in 8bit”-style would also violate copyright (but it doesn’t – and there are good reasons for that). I won’t disagree that the design shown here is largely inspired by the apple wallpapers, the specific colors and shapes are just too similar. Those obviously must be changed, if this should be going forward – no question. Using “vector style” in a shield, however, is too common as a pattern to be protected by copyright. So unless you bring trademark into this – for which it must be “distinct” and the wallpaper on its own wouldn’t be, even if they tried to trademark it – this isn’t really a violation.
The competition team had a short meeting earlier and discussed the findings that @pilusoposted earlier today. We decided that design number 7 and design number 235 can no longer be used for the competition. We have asked both designers to come up with a new design during the remainder of the competition.
This gave us an opportunity to ask one of the designers to have a go at the design that @BambooGardensuggested in the other thread.
We suggested the other designer to focus on the network and decentralized/autonomous aspects of the network hoping that we will see a design that’s different from the other designs submitted to the competition so far.
The original post has been edited to reflect the above.
Hoorah! I’m extremely pleased to hear this, this design suggestion is so much more in line with the current penrose (I think that’s what it’s called). It’s abstract and gives a sense that there is more than meets the eye.
Why did they just rip off the open source logo??? Theirs was amazing before, get them to resubmit without plagiarism and actually improve their amazing first design, and they’ll win!
Because of @piluso, I searched and found a logo very similar to our Safecoin Logo here.
It is very hard to create unique designs with standard shapes (circles, and polygons). I think human recognition affects our preference. Most people see familiar patterns where none exist. I doubt any logo will be completely unique.
Having said that, I want to share an interesting point of view about #6 (logo #268). I tweaked it a little for this story.
The 2 solid hexagons or (cubes) represent vaults in the SAFE Network. They appear unaware of each other due to the space gap. However, they are connected through XOR which surrounds both of them. As one takes a step back to look at the whole picture, we see the pattern “S” emerge, expressing the SAFE Network.
All credit goes to the designer of #268. I just wanted to add something useful when I saw this logo.
Hexagons are reminiscent of beehives, which might cause confusion, since bees are sort of like ants, but not. Anyway, it is gratuitous: there is no reason to have hexagons: What is hexagonal about SAFEnet? Nothing.
There are some great hexagon-based design ideas floating around, though (even though these disappointingly didn’t seem to show up in the design competition):
Actually, I took a substantive look into all kind of S-logos before I started working on the design and while I didn´t see the one you describe it is hard to imagine it doesn´t exist (conceptually). I didn´t see one in the competition that didn´t exist before, so I agree with @dyamanaka it´s hard to say what is genuine and what not. Just to be clear - I didn´t use any sort of template but the imagery of a real ant colony. If there was an image where the position were exactly the same I´d like to see it.
I personally like 110 because it is clean, scalable and works metaphorically. (not very innovative I admit - but as I said - reinventing the wheel is tough) People will recognize and understand it. The other ones don´t work for me:
Number 6 doesn´t work for me. Of course it addresses the “people´s network” but it somehow resembles a broken lock.
Number 7 is not scalable imho and I don´t get it at first look.
Number 15 doesn´t work in black white and doesn´t seem to me scalable at all.
Number 268 doesn´t work for me metaphorically. It is scalable and while I don´t like the padlock allegory I believe it is pretty recognizable. However, I don´t buy the part with the two lines who constitute the S. Also I don´t think the font corresponds to the Logo. Neither does the round padlock clamp correspond to the edgy appearance of the rest of the logo and the logotype.
Sorry that was not directed at you just qouted the reference. Swarm is also using the hexagon.
We were always ants it’s a great metaphor and Im sad to see it replaced with padlocks
Anyway, it is gratuitous: there is no reason to have hexagons: What is hexagonal about SAFEnet? Nothing.