Photographs of hardware in Fedora documentation
The new Fedora Wireless Guide includes photographs of different types of
wireless adapter:
http://sradvan.fedorapeople.org/Wireless_Guide/en-US/html-single/#sect-Wi...
In each case, the manufacturer's logos and/or (obviously) the design of
the hardware itself is visible in the photograph.
Some questions:
1. Are the manufacturer's labels on the hardware and/or the design of
the hardware itself (particularly the styling of the USB adapter in the
first picture) likely to be protected by copyright?
If so:
* Is our use of the image to illustrate a generic component of a
particular type likely to be covered by "fair use" for publication in
the United States?
* Is this protection likely to cause problems for people who want to
reuse our content? (I'm thinking in particular of places that have no
"fair use" or equivalent concept in their copyright law, or for reusers
who want to use the image in a completely different context) -- and if
so, do we care, or are reusers on their own here?
2. Could using specific pieces of hardware to illustrate a generic type
of hardware be construed to be an endorsement of this particular piece
of hardware or its manufacturer? If so, do we want to do this in our docs?
Cheers
Ruediger