Usage of Tropy trademarks

This document is intended to explain the proper usage of Tropy trademarks and the relationship between these trademarks and the licensing of the Tropy software. We’ve tried to make the following explanation as simple as possible, but ultimately trademarks and copyright are legal matters. If you have any questions about when and how to use Tropy trademarks, you should contact an attorney.

Tropy trademarks

Tropy is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. This trademark may not be used in connection with any product or service that is not affiliated with the Corporation, in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among Tropy users, or in any manner that disparages or discredits Tropy or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

Trademarks and the AGPL

Tropy’s products are copyrighted works released under the terms of the Affero General Public License (AGPL). Verbatim copies of such works may be made and distributed, by anyone, in accordance with the terms of the AGPL without violating Tropy trademarks. The AGPL also grants you certain rights to make and distribute derivative works based on Tropy source code.

The AGPL does not grant you any right to use Tropy trademarks in connection with these derivative works. Tropy trademarks may not be used in connection with any such derivative works unless that usage is explicitly and specifically licensed, in writing, from the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

Why care about trademarks at all?

It is important to us and to our user community to know which products are released by the Tropy project. That’s why we care who uses the Tropy name and how they use it. But apart from the Tropy trademarks, we ensure that the software itself remains fully open source, which is why we use the AGPL.