External use of SR branding
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Peter Law
Oct 27, 2014, 2:55:35 PM10/27/14
to Student Robotics
Hi,
While we're not officially a charity yet, and (as far as I know) don't
have our logo officially registered anywhere, I do think that we
should try to ensure that our logo is used in suitable ways. I've
admittedly no idea what the legal standing of this is either, though
this would be useful to know.
At the moment, there are pretty much two groups of people who use our
logo, name and branding:
* "Us", ie volunteers acting on behalf of SR to do things directly
related to the main SR activities
* Teams, who use our logo on their websites, blogs, facebook etc.
to show what they're part of
* Smallpiece? -- I think they used to be co-branded, but this appears
to have stopped this year via edict from the SC [1]
In the past we've not really kept much of an eye on how the teams use
our logo, which I think may be a bad thing -- I've certainly seen them
put the wrong name (eg: "Student Robotics Competition", "Student
Robotics Challenge") in their videos.
Since we're about to gain another group of people using our logo (the
more-than-just-a-branch in Munich), I thought it would be worth us
actually having a discussion about how we want our logo to be used,
and how much effort we want to go to in controlling that. I'll emit my
own thoughts in a reply.
I'd really hate for us to try to trademark our logo and find that we
can't because it's unclear who originated it or it's become so generic
that we have no control over our own name.
Peter
[1] There's no clarity as to _why_ we didn't want to be co-branded in
the minutes, so while a little odd this doesn't directly relate to
this email
While we're not officially a charity yet, and (as far as I know) don't
have our logo officially registered anywhere, I do think that we
should try to ensure that our logo is used in suitable ways. I've
admittedly no idea what the legal standing of this is either, though
this would be useful to know.
At the moment, there are pretty much two groups of people who use our
logo, name and branding:
* "Us", ie volunteers acting on behalf of SR to do things directly
related to the main SR activities
* Teams, who use our logo on their websites, blogs, facebook etc.
to show what they're part of
* Smallpiece? -- I think they used to be co-branded, but this appears
to have stopped this year via edict from the SC [1]
In the past we've not really kept much of an eye on how the teams use
our logo, which I think may be a bad thing -- I've certainly seen them
put the wrong name (eg: "Student Robotics Competition", "Student
Robotics Challenge") in their videos.
Since we're about to gain another group of people using our logo (the
more-than-just-a-branch in Munich), I thought it would be worth us
actually having a discussion about how we want our logo to be used,
and how much effort we want to go to in controlling that. I'll emit my
own thoughts in a reply.
I'd really hate for us to try to trademark our logo and find that we
can't because it's unclear who originated it or it's become so generic
that we have no control over our own name.
Peter
[1] There's no clarity as to _why_ we didn't want to be co-branded in
the minutes, so while a little odd this doesn't directly relate to
this email
Peter Law
Oct 27, 2014, 3:16:28 PM10/27/14
to Student Robotics
Hi again,
> In the past we've not really kept much of an eye on how the teams use
> our logo, which I think may be a bad thing -- I've certainly seen them
> put the wrong name (eg: "Student Robotics Competition", "Student
> Robotics Challenge") in their videos.
In general, I think that letting (even encouraging) the teams to use
our logo is fine, though I'd personally like to see them use it
correctly. Part of the reason we enjoy them creating blogs etc is the
publicity it generates for us, so we do want our logo on there, but at
the same time we want it to be right.
On a related note, we also want them to be clear who is organising
things -- I'm sure everyone would rather that a certain newspaper
hadn't suggested SR was run by the University of Southampton.
> Since we're about to gain another group of people using our logo (the
> more-than-just-a-branch in Munich), I thought it would be worth us
> actually having a discussion about how we want our logo to be used,
> and how much effort we want to go to in controlling that. I'll emit my
> own thoughts in a reply.
To expand on the Munich use of branding: they're currently setting
themselves up a website (which looks like it will be srobo.de), and
exploring what branding to use for that. I'd initially suggested that
branch related things should go into srweb, but was told that they're
separate and more than just a branch.
In this regard, I was therefore waiting to see what appeared as the
proposed logos before expressing an opinion. The proposed branding is
on the thread "Schüler bauen Roboter e.V. Logo & CI (concept)" [1],
and largely consist of cloning the SR branding and adding some tweaks.
Given the above desire to be a bit separate from SR (both in that it
does other things, and that we have no shared leadership), I'm against
their use of our logo in this manner for a couple of reasons:
* They aren't SR, and I'd rather they didn't claim to be
* If we do want to advertise SR as a thing in Europe, then having
something which already exists with similar branding feels like
the sort of thing which would cause problems.
In a brief discussion on IRC yesterday, I think Andy (Ultimation)
suggested that they could use our logo akin to how the teams do, but
without branding themselves as being the same thing. This is what I
think I'd like to see happen.
Cue screaming,
Peter
PS: Somewhat separately, we might also want to talk about how our
other UK branches would fit into this, if we want to branch them as
things, and possibly including them in more detail on the website.
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/srobo-de/xjYTzvXY9aE/discussion
> In the past we've not really kept much of an eye on how the teams use
> our logo, which I think may be a bad thing -- I've certainly seen them
> put the wrong name (eg: "Student Robotics Competition", "Student
> Robotics Challenge") in their videos.
our logo is fine, though I'd personally like to see them use it
correctly. Part of the reason we enjoy them creating blogs etc is the
publicity it generates for us, so we do want our logo on there, but at
the same time we want it to be right.
On a related note, we also want them to be clear who is organising
things -- I'm sure everyone would rather that a certain newspaper
hadn't suggested SR was run by the University of Southampton.
> Since we're about to gain another group of people using our logo (the
> more-than-just-a-branch in Munich), I thought it would be worth us
> actually having a discussion about how we want our logo to be used,
> and how much effort we want to go to in controlling that. I'll emit my
> own thoughts in a reply.
themselves up a website (which looks like it will be srobo.de), and
exploring what branding to use for that. I'd initially suggested that
branch related things should go into srweb, but was told that they're
separate and more than just a branch.
In this regard, I was therefore waiting to see what appeared as the
proposed logos before expressing an opinion. The proposed branding is
on the thread "Schüler bauen Roboter e.V. Logo & CI (concept)" [1],
and largely consist of cloning the SR branding and adding some tweaks.
Given the above desire to be a bit separate from SR (both in that it
does other things, and that we have no shared leadership), I'm against
their use of our logo in this manner for a couple of reasons:
* They aren't SR, and I'd rather they didn't claim to be
* If we do want to advertise SR as a thing in Europe, then having
something which already exists with similar branding feels like
the sort of thing which would cause problems.
In a brief discussion on IRC yesterday, I think Andy (Ultimation)
suggested that they could use our logo akin to how the teams do, but
without branding themselves as being the same thing. This is what I
think I'd like to see happen.
Cue screaming,
Peter
PS: Somewhat separately, we might also want to talk about how our
other UK branches would fit into this, if we want to branch them as
things, and possibly including them in more detail on the website.
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/srobo-de/xjYTzvXY9aE/discussion
Christopher Hewett
Oct 27, 2014, 3:34:45 PM10/27/14
to sr...@googlegroups.com
Its probably a good idea, once discussion regarding the logo situation has finished, to provide somewhere that people can get some decent resolution images of the logo and associated "Student Robotics" text. Im not aware of anywhere you can obtain a number of different styles of logo.
Thanks
Googling also seems to return two different logos [1] [2].
Providing this in some easy to access place and in a number of formats can only help us maintain an image and to ensure that teams/external people use an image that we approve of.
Thanks
Chewett
Peter Law
Oct 27, 2014, 3:43:43 PM10/27/14
to Student Robotics
Chewett wwrote:
the marketing.git repo [B] are the current places to start, but
they're not well advertised.
> Googling also seems to return two different logos [1] [2].
Unfortunately neither of these is quite correct! The shine was removed
a long while ago, and we generally don't use a white border unless the
background is a dark colour.
Peter
[1] http://widgets.ecs.soton.ac.uk/image.php?id=news_1438_img&maxw=300&maxh=300&edge=1&checksum=ead44b02844d11cf0cc86f9c90daa4f8
[2] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/04/StudentRoboticsLogo.svg/200px-StudentRoboticsLogo.svg.png
[A] https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/wiki/House%20Style
[B] https://www.studentrobotics.org/cgit/marketing.git/tree/logos
> Its probably a good idea, once discussion regarding the logo situation has
> finished, to provide somewhere that people can get some decent resolution
> images of the logo and associated "Student Robotics" text. Im not aware of
> anywhere you can obtain a number of different styles of logo.
Definitely. The "House Style" page of trac [A] and the logos folder of
> finished, to provide somewhere that people can get some decent resolution
> images of the logo and associated "Student Robotics" text. Im not aware of
> anywhere you can obtain a number of different styles of logo.
the marketing.git repo [B] are the current places to start, but
they're not well advertised.
> Googling also seems to return two different logos [1] [2].
a long while ago, and we generally don't use a white border unless the
background is a dark colour.
Peter
[1] http://widgets.ecs.soton.ac.uk/image.php?id=news_1438_img&maxw=300&maxh=300&edge=1&checksum=ead44b02844d11cf0cc86f9c90daa4f8
[2] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/04/StudentRoboticsLogo.svg/200px-StudentRoboticsLogo.svg.png
[B] https://www.studentrobotics.org/cgit/marketing.git/tree/logos
Peter Law
Oct 27, 2014, 3:45:46 PM10/27/14
to Student Robotics
Hi,
I wrote:
> <Munich and SR> have no shared leadership
I'd forgotten that lilafisch is on both committees, so this isn't
entirely true, apologies.
Peter
I wrote:
> <Munich and SR> have no shared leadership
I'd forgotten that lilafisch is on both committees, so this isn't
entirely true, apologies.
Peter
Sophia Maria
Oct 27, 2014, 4:28:29 PM10/27/14
to sr...@googlegroups.com
Hi everyone,
to clearify what is going on in Munich:
As I already wrote under 'Schueler bauen Roboter e.V. was successfully started':
The drafts Peter linked to are 45 minute ideas made by one of our newest blueshirts, Ruben (who was nice enough to give this a thought despite an exam tomorrow). We are still trying to figure out what the exact construct is we are, and what options exist. One of them is indeed a logo that is recognisably a variation on the SR logo.
> Some time after Kickstart we need to have a discussion on how we can get Munich branding combined with blueshirts.
> We want to have the german charity name on our shirts, and probably also our own sponsors once we have those, but of course SR > should be included as well.
> We want to have the german charity name on our shirts, and probably also our own sponsors once we have those, but of course SR > should be included as well.
> An ex competitor from team MAI is currently collecting ideas on that.
The drafts Peter linked to are 45 minute ideas made by one of our newest blueshirts, Ruben (who was nice enough to give this a thought despite an exam tomorrow). We are still trying to figure out what the exact construct is we are, and what options exist. One of them is indeed a logo that is recognisably a variation on the SR logo.
Other options are an additional logo that fits well with the SR logo and could be combined on the shirts, or a completely separate logo.
The colour similarity is a mixture of the SR branding colours but also our uni having a similarly coloured logo [0].
We would of course, as already expressed, bring this discussion to all of SR,
however, as expressed in the thread mentioned by Peter, things are more complicated and I would have appreciated some time to find translations, explanations and first and foremost an overview of the opinions that exists in Munich and that I feel I represent on this list.
There are several reasons that made us go for a more open purpose of our organisation and that therefore lead to the need of a new branding concept. In addition I am still in the process of finding good translations/explanations what the German constructs and rules are. We are still learning them here ourselves in Germany.
however, as expressed in the thread mentioned by Peter, things are more complicated and I would have appreciated some time to find translations, explanations and first and foremost an overview of the opinions that exists in Munich and that I feel I represent on this list.
There are several reasons that made us go for a more open purpose of our organisation and that therefore lead to the need of a new branding concept. In addition I am still in the process of finding good translations/explanations what the German constructs and rules are. We are still learning them here ourselves in Germany.
I will basically be off the internet for the next 4 days and would really prefer to focus on my friends and family instead of participating in a discussion that I see no hurry for. I'd prefer to pick this up once I'm back in Southampton where I can pick the brains of my housemates for translations and similar constructs in the UK.
In addition we have to reformulate our legal text [1] to have a chance at getting accepted as a charity [1] which I would prefer to get done in my last days in Munich (RE Southampton on the 2nd/3rd of November).
I agree that the logo question is important. It reads to me like the uncertainties about the Munich structures lead to worries.
There is no intention to force anything on SR, of course we wouldn't use, amend or not use the Student Robotics logo without the acceptance from Student Robotics.
I agree that the logo question is important. It reads to me like the uncertainties about the Munich structures lead to worries.
There is no intention to force anything on SR, of course we wouldn't use, amend or not use the Student Robotics logo without the acceptance from Student Robotics.
cheers
lilafisch
[1] these are not accurate translations, but the best I can find to write a continuous text.
legal text:
legal text - 'Vereinssatzung': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_association is the English linked wikipedia page,
legal text - 'Vereinssatzung': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_association is the English linked wikipedia page,
however a quick read gives me the impression it's talking about something different.
It is a legal document that describes the purpose and structure of a 'Verein', which is not a company but usually an association of people who want to regularly meet around a topic/purpose/hobby/... It is necessary because it gives legal support to the blueshirts, a financial structure and gives us access to support systems that we can apply for once we are a 'Verein'.
It is a legal document that describes the purpose and structure of a 'Verein', which is not a company but usually an association of people who want to regularly meet around a topic/purpose/hobby/... It is necessary because it gives legal support to the blueshirts, a financial structure and gives us access to support systems that we can apply for once we are a 'Verein'.
charity - 'Gemeinnuetzigkeit': Once we are a Verein our 'Vereinssatzung' can be checked by German financial offices. If the purposes of 'Schueler bauen Roboter e.V.' are in agreement with a list of purposes that are acknowledged to support the general well-being, we
can be exempt from paying taxes and companies/people that support us can make donations to us which will be deduced from their taxes. At least that's how I understand it. What I know is that it makes it easier to get donations. From other groups that have this status we believe we should get it too, however the rules are applied quite strictly and we are still trying to find a wording that will be accepted. We got a letter today informing us that we chose the wrong parts of the law and that we should refer to others and reformulate our purposes.
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Sophia Maria
Nov 14, 2014, 5:52:50 PM11/14/14
to sr...@googlegroups.com
Hi,
just to give an update:
just to give an update:
I am in the process of writing an essay about the structures in Munich, mainly from my perspective, explaining what constructs we chose, why we did so and how it all might fit with SR.
Another thing I do wonder: What rules would logo protection fall under?
What paragraphs should I search for?
Mainly I wonder what happens if we don't enforce the logo (e.g. with teams) and if someone can sue us for using the logo if we don't do anything about it.
I don't believe we will make teams describe SR more accurately by inserting legal stuff.
Cheers
lilafisch
lilafisch
Peter Law
Nov 15, 2014, 1:28:49 PM11/15/14
to Student Robotics
lilafisch wrote:
> Another thing I do wonder: What rules would logo protection fall under?
Its design is (inherently) covered by copyright in the UK. It was
> Another thing I do wonder: What rules would logo protection fall under?
originally designed by Russell Newman who has handed it over to
Student Robotics [1], and has since been modified by Rob to remove the
3D/shine.
Our use of it is as a trade mark and while not currently registered as
such, I'd hope that we have some basic coverage just by using it on an
on-going basis.
> What paragraphs should I search for?
> Mainly I wonder what happens if we don't enforce the logo (e.g. with teams)
> and if someone can sue us for using the logo if we don't do anything about
> it.
I'd doubt that anyone else would be able to sue us for using our own
logo since we can show [1] that we created it (and have some
documentation around _when_ we did that).
The main thing I think happens if we don't prevent people using it is
that it becomes harder to claim that we're actively using it our
trademark (since it could be viewed that it's not identifying as us).
In general, I believe that use of a trademark by someone other than
the owner when using it to reference the original item is something
that you can't really prevent happening anyway (and I don't really see
why anyone would want to prevent, not that that stops people trying).
Some actual research into how the law works in the UK has occurred in
the past (I can't remember when unfortunately), and I think we did
look at trademarking the logo (possibly at the same time), but it
didn't seem especially worth it at the time. Further research here is
definitely needed.
> I don't believe we will make teams describe SR more accurately by inserting
> legal stuff.
However I do think we can easily encourage them to get the name right
through a combination of gentle prodding and having a dedicated page
on the website which provides this sort of information.
We could even create a full "Press Pack" with a decent quality logo
and some spiel which provides an overview which can be pasted into
articles. This may also have the added benefit of improving the 'real
press' reporting about us [2].
Peter
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/srobo/NFsbkBFtdj8/discussion
[2] A little of topic, but I think it's probably worth doing anyway.
Also, this is an area which Joyce (or someone similar) may be able to
provide some advice on, if we ask them nicely.
Jeremy Morse
Nov 15, 2014, 1:35:24 PM11/15/14
to sr...@googlegroups.com
Hi,
On 14/11/14 22:52, Sophia Maria wrote:
> I don't believe we will make teams describe SR more accurately by inserting
> legal stuff.
I've had two teams enquire about this; in lieu of a real story on this
topic, I've asked them to not use our logo in any way that would bring
SR into disrepute. "Disrepute" is sufficiently broad to cover any thing
we wouldn't want them to do with it, IMO.
--
Thanks,
Jeremy
On 14/11/14 22:52, Sophia Maria wrote:
> I don't believe we will make teams describe SR more accurately by inserting
> legal stuff.
topic, I've asked them to not use our logo in any way that would bring
SR into disrepute. "Disrepute" is sufficiently broad to cover any thing
we wouldn't want them to do with it, IMO.
--
Thanks,
Jeremy
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