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Attention | Topic was automatically imported from the old Question2Answer platform. |
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Asked By | holvonixAdvay |
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Old Version | Published before Godot 3 was released. |
Are there any trademark rules for Godot? Guidelines for using the name, logo or other brand collateral on our website/app/etc.? Who if anyone owns the trademarks?
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Reply From: | DodoIta |
Is this what you’re looking for?
Nope. I’m looking for rules/guidelines on usage of the Godot brand, not copyright licenses.
holvonixAdvay | 2017-10-13 16:09
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Reply From: | fkul |
As the original development took place in Argentina, it’s most likely that Godot’s trademark would be covered under that country’s law. I don’t speak Spanish, but the Argentinian trademark office provides a Spanish language search function for current trademarks.
That said, looking into Argentinian law (and IANAL, so take with a grain of salt), it appears that although there’s no implicit trademark (as with the USA, Canada and others), the bar for challenging a trademark is very low (almost anyone can challenge a new registration, not simply the principle trademark owners). So even if Godot isn’t registered there (and as I stated, it may be registered elsewhere, as the developers travel quite a bit and work in many countries), someone in a similar industry who wished to claim the trademark would almost certainly fail.
Add to that the fact that Godot is a member of Software Freedom Conservancy and Godot’s “parent” company has worked with much larger studios (Disney, Cartoon Network, etc.), you probably want to ask really, really nicely before simply grabbing their name, logo, etc. and using them as you wish. (Not that they’re vicious about such things, it’s just common courtesy, and a simple email will save everyone a bunch of grief.)
If you’re not sure where to ask, their GitHub page is probably a good place to see if this has already been asked and then ask, or perhaps Okam Studio directly. (I prefer GitHub for initial insight into these matters, as the original developers/maintainers can weigh in, versus being diverted to corporate lawyers who invariably say no.)
If you’re asking because you want to promote their product, often you’ll receive a positive response. If you’re asking to make a quick buck by holding their trademark hostage, the backlash isn’t worth it. Every time somebody tries such a scam, they find themselves facing ire across the F/OSS spectrum, from small projects to the legal teams from the biggest names in tech, and occasionally even governments get involved.
Nobody who uses F/OSS on a daily basis (which is pretty much the entire global tech industry today) wants to see a precedent set that deprives them of the software they love. Caldera/SCO found this out the hard way back in the early 2000s, and far more people and companies use F/OSS today.
I’m asking so I can properly say something like “Uses Godot Engine” and/or their logo or whatever on a credit or splash screen to a game (in addition to the MIT license requirements), and most large open-source projects, while they are permissive about their code being reused, naturally want to protect their trade or service marks to make sure others don’t pass off code as being the ‘real’ project, and thus usually have some legal entity that prescribes brand guidelines. It is possible Godot isn’t at the stage where a legal entity or an original author has thought about trademark/branding but that’s why I am asking 
Consider Linux’s page here: Sublicense the Linux Mark | Linux Foundation
[I am not a lawyer, and none of this is legal advice.]
holvonixAdvay | 2017-10-14 05:26