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After scrolling down in an email received from Springer, I stumbled across an image that looks undoubtedly similar to the Academia StackExchange logo. I made my little investigation, and found it again on the Springer Shop website.

When the site was still in beta, this post was created to discuss the future design. From what I know, this is where our logo comes from. Since I don't know if either our logo or their image is copyrighted (and have no legal knowledge anyway), I just wanted to highlight this (possible) issue to the community.

I know this is not much of a StackExchange question, but are the mods aware about this? If problematical, I do believe that this situation must be sorted as soon as possible.

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    Since I don't know if either our logo or their image is copyrighted. – Copyright is an automatic thing. If you create something (that is above the innovation threshold), you have the copyright.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Feb 8, 2016 at 15:26
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    @Wrzlprmft If you create something (that is above the innovation threshold), then, depending on circumstances, you or your employer has the copyright.
    – David Richerby
    Feb 11, 2016 at 19:30

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I don't think there is anything to worry about:

  1. The logos are not exactly identical, there is no copyright or attribution license issue.
  2. It seems pretty clear from Springer's website that this drawing is not a registered trademark.
  3. The image is rather generic and very similar instances can be found on stock design websites:

enter image description here

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    I thought the community would be better safe than sorry. Thanks for clarifying that.
    – PatW
    Feb 9, 2016 at 13:16

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