Wikipedia's general counsel, Michael Godwin, is pretty good at writing these rather biting replies to legal threats while nonetheless still hitting the actual legal points. Fun fact: yes, he's that Godwin.
I'm not sure why you are surprised. Huge parts of the study of Law is the study of oratory, and that's to what Godwin's Lax refers. Given that the internet must be amongst the most interesting places for a lawyer to be involved, I'm actually surprised that more lawyers aren't more heavily involved in the subculture.
Best passage of the letter from Wikimedia to the FBI:
«In your letter, you assert that an image of an FBI seal included in a Wikipedia article is “problematic” because “it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting violations” of 18 U.S.C. 701. I hope you will agree that the adjective “problematic,” even if it were truly applicable here, is not semantically identical to “unlawful.”»
Exactly. Just because the FBI doesn't like it doesn't make it illegal.
One thing that a lot of people don't appreciate about lawyers is that they will almost always try to push people beyond what the law is capable of compelling a person to do.
A typical letter from a lawyer will mix in numerous requests (which have no legal basis and are merely things which would be nice for the client) amongst legitimate legal complaints. It is not any lawyer's job (except one you have hired) to precisely define which behaviors of yours they think violate the law. Thus, lawyers use the law as a lever to facilitate much greater benefit to their clients (to the detriment of whomever their client has targetted). This is a major factor why lawyers get paid so much.
And how exactly am I supposed to memorize this image so that I may rapidly authenticate the bearer against all possible simulations if I can't see it?
There's no need for that. The fact that it's illegal for anyone but the FBI to use it as an identifier is the authentication. You need not look too closely at the image. :/
Edit: I assume from the downvotes that there are people who actually believe this is a good idea. Could someone who believes that please defend the idea so we can have a discussion about it? :)
Any downvotes were probably from people taking you seriously. Sarcasm doesn't translate well into text. At least, I'm assuming that you meant to be sarcastic, given your edit.
Since it's no longer downvoted, I think you're right.
I was being sarcastic, and didn't realize I hadn't indicated it well enough until your comment. Thanks for pointing it out; I'll try to be more explicit in the future. :)
There is the same situation with the $100 bill. We all have to be able to identify a legit one but I would guess the US treasury would similarly have a problem with Wikipedia posting a "camera ready" image if a $100 bill.
The $100 bill image on Wikipedia is 659px X 289px and is marked "specimen." The FBI logo is 2000x2000
All Americans are allowed to possess $100 bills in their full detail. There are all kinds of restrictions on what we can do with them, but we can possess them and look at them any time we like.
Resolution isn't much of an issue either. Absent watermarks, there are lots of nice upsampling algorithms.
As for the Treasury having a problem with it, if you make your file/printed copy one-sided and either <.75x or >1.5x in scale (and delete the files you used to create it when done), they don't care.
Writing Scary sounding legalese filled letters is typically all it takes for a big government agency to get the other party to back down. The approach is simple: loudly proclaim "We have the law on OUR side - so do not mess with us" and then make all kinds of unreasonable demands while the other guy is "quaking in his boots".
Unfortunately for the FBI, Wikipedia has had its share of legal tangles in the past so they clearly have competent (and unflappable) legal counsel. The standard chest-thumping scare tactics are unlikely to work here.
The FBI seal, along with all other government seals, are public domain.
We paid for them with our taxes.
Yes, there are laws saying that you can't use the FBI seal to misrepresent yourself as an FBI agent, or acting on authority of the FBI, but you have a right to display the seal in other ways. Same as any other government seal.
Wikipedia is using the seal in an educational manner. Fully protected and legal use of that seal.
There are limits to free speech -- no yelling fire in a crowded theater and all that. I am just asking, is a huge, beautiful rendering really necessary and responsible? Maybe if the FBI had asked that question instead of threatening they would have gotten a different answer.
Part of the concept of free speech is that it doesn't need to be responsible, necessary, understandable, or anything. Unless it is used in the commission of a crime, it is free.
This poster has a point, why do you downvote instead of answering or disagreeing?
I'm rooting for the underdog (especially when it's a public service like Wikipedia vs the big bad US Government agency), but he's asking for Wikipedia's criteria for selecting the image size for display.
Apparently there are valid reasons, which the FBI will not like:
"(...) of sufficiently high resolution to allow quality print reproduction. Still images should be a minimum of 1000 pixels in width or height; larger sizes are generally preferred. The size of animated images is judged less strictly, though larger is still preferred."
The seal has been uploaded to Wikipedia as an SVG. SVG is a vector image format, which allows for arbitrary resizing without any loss in quality, while the PNG (raster) version is automatically generated on Wikipedia's servers at whatever size the user wants.
Once upon a time, this site had something of a tradition of saving the "piling on downvotes" for people who were outright rude/aggressive/trolling rather than saying something that was simply wrong.
The “featured picture criteria” are not the same as the criteria for any image anywhere on the site. It is doubtful that the FBI seal would ever be a featured picture.
Thanks, I did not know that (nor the fact that it was SVG).
Still, it's one of the criteria for uploading images that Wikipedia uses (if it ever decided to feature the seal, it would use this criterion for doing so).
"Logos uploaded to Wikipedia must be low resolution and no larger than necessary."
and
"U.S. law prohibits the reproduction of designated logos of U.S. government agencies without permission. Use restrictions of such logos must be followed and permission obtained before use, if required. However, this does not affect the copyright status, because as works of the federal government, they are automatically in the public domain. These should be tagged with {{insignia}}."
Baader-Meinhof alert: just yesterday I was googling around about fair use with regard to logos and insignias when I came upon this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Logos
Considering how impressively thorough their policies and guidelines are the FBI's action comes as something of a surprise.
