Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust

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Update

(by Liz Rea on behalf of the community):
There has been a lot of news in the last 24 hours – much of it has been collected in this Zotero group. Coverage of the story includes three radio stories, one TV clip, blog posts, tweets, Facebook and G+ updates. We are overwhelmed by the support we are getting from around the world – thank you so much for your time, money, tweets, and attention to our plight.

We learned a few hours ago of a press release and statement from a LibLime/PTFS staff member that states their intention to transfer the TM to the Horowhenua Library Trust. However, as of this writing there has been no official communication between LibLime/PTFS and HLT that I am aware of. We will update this post again when we have more information, and thank you again (and again) for your support.

Original Post

Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community.

The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight.

For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, but it is at this point that we find ourselves.

So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know.

Help the cause – contribute to our legal challenge fund:

Contribute using PayPal

NZ cheques can be made out to Horowhenua Library Trust and posted to:

Levin Library, 10 Bath Street, Levin 5510

Bank deposits can be made to this account:

Te Horowhenua Trust, Westpac, Levin, NZ. 030667-0299274-00  REF: Trademark

69 Comments on “Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust”

  2. Hi all,

    I believe you may have a case here to claim copyright infringment. The software is protected by the GNU Public License. It is not in the public domain. This means that the authors have retained certain rights, such as the right not to have the work falsely attributed to someone else (or a parody of the work falsely attributed to the author).

    It could be argued that trying to seize a trademark in connection with a work is tantamount to claiming ownership of that work, which is copyright infringement.

    (It would be different if the trademark being claimed were not connected to the program, but some other product in the same industry, but in fact this corporation is foolishly to assert the trademark in connection with this software, right?)

    You can’t borrow someone’s copyrighted software, build a service business around it and then try to pretend you are the author by claiming the trademark. That is clearly a form of plagiarism.

    I think that a smart move to make would be to exercise the power of authorship and deny the right to this company and all of its agents and employees to redistribute and use the software (as a special exception to the GPL that applies to all other redistributors).

    I.e. TERMINATE THEIR LICENSE. NOW!

  4. I too have just added to the defence fund, the term from Brett ‘Kia Kaha’ , is indeed appropriate as we need to resist this type of tyranny too!!

    Ngā mihi rā mō ngā rā kei mua i te aroaro
    All the best for the future

    Andy

  6. Kia Ora,

    I support this kaupapa 100%, it would be really good to have an update of where things are at as I have see some great suggestions here regarding the rights of the authors of this software. I am also very curious as to the process the application has gone through, especially via the Maori Advisory Committee. I have read what their role is and who they are and am quite surprised that they allowed the application to go through without making their own enquiries, maybe they did? Anyway an update would be great.

    nga mihi, Hinerangi