Enforcing Yearn Finance's Branding Copyright

[sambacha]

Yearn Finance - Enforcing Copyright

Many projects such as ‘YFII’ have been abusing the decentralized nature of Yearn Finance at the determent of the Yearn Finance Ecosystem for example
https://medium.com/oasis-protocol-project/bringing-yfii-to-the-oasis-network-3c9c1e8880c

Having the Yearn Logo sideways with a different color is a clear copyright violation. If yearn is unable or unwilling to enforce its copyright’s as it relates to branding whats to stop people violating software copyrights? This thread is to start a discussion on how to best approach this issue.
So, should Yearn Finance create a grant for a lawyer on retainer to file letters of cease and desist to such alleged violators of copyright? Personally I think a grant should be done in an effort to combat the blatant reappropriation of all the hard work the engineers and contributors to the ecosystem have done.

[hen]

this may be a naive view (probably is) but I see copyrights/trademarks/patents as part of an antiquated system I am wholly uninterested in seeing yearn interact with

true brands come from reputation, which YFI has; not some paperwork in some office building

[Gobonzobean]

I think that instead of seeking to enforce a copyright, you should make a proposal for getting a consultation with an IP attorney. I think that if the YFI community hasn’t filed for a trademark, they should. It provides far greater protections, although you can definitely pursue some of these ‘ill-intentioned’ copycats for violating copyright laws. Perhaps through an injunction in court although it’s pretty hard to sue people on the internet because they hide behind computers and pseudonyms.

FYI, I’m not an attorney, you should get legal advice.

[Frederik]

General counsel operations are profitable in some cases.

[shoofles]

IP is stupid and whether you agree with that or not, trying to engage with it right now would open regulatory questions that are better put off at the moment. But are we honestly that offended that someone rotated our logo

[Beepidibop]

@sambacha

whats to stop people violating software copyrights?

Literally anyone can fork yearn and make their own contributions.

I suggest you give this thread a read.

How we think about Yearn

How we think about Yearn What Yearn is not Yearn is not a company. It does not have a board. There is no CEO, there is no team of managers. There is no room for bureaucrats. Yearn does not have investors. There are no VCs, no angels, no SPACs, and no SPVs that are pulling the strings in the background. Yearn does not cater to speculators. Pump it, dump it, hedge it, short it, long it, lend it, nobody cares. Yearn is agnostic to price. Yearn does not have an official voice. There’s no legal …

[dudesahn]

While I definitely get the whole “this is DeFi, this is open source, etc etc” argument, there’s also something to be said for Yearn protecting its brand and more importantly its customers from forks, most of which are 100% scams.

Although it seems obvious to most people here, I can’t even count the number of users daily coming into the telegram group asking about YFFI, YFII, YF3, or any other number of forks, assuming that they are related to Yearn somehow—the overwhelming majority of which are blatant scams, frequently stealing funds from users.

I think this is an interesting thought that is worth pursuing further.