[Breeze] [Bug 487595] New: Breeze icon theme uses copyrighted icons without acknowledgement or compliance with the owners' guidelines

[Adam Williamson]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=487595

            Bug ID: 487595
           Summary: Breeze icon theme uses copyrighted icons without
                    acknowledgement or compliance with the owners'
                    guidelines
    Classification: Plasma
           Product: Breeze
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Other
                OS: Linux
            Status: REPORTED
          Severity: critical
          Priority: NOR
         Component: Icons
          Assignee: visual-design at kde.org
          Reporter: adamw at happyassassin.net
                CC: kainz.a at gmail.com, m at nueljl.in
  Target Milestone: ---

SUMMARY
The breeze icon theme repo includes
https://github.com/KDE/breeze-icons/blob/master/COPYING-ICONS , which appears
to describe the copyright claims for icons in the repository. It seems to claim
that all the icons are original works and copyrighted under the LGPL. However,
this is clearly not true.

For example, breeze-icons/icons/actions/22/im-skype.svg is very clearly a
modified version of Microsoft's Skype icon. This is copyrighted by Microsoft,
and is very definitely not under the LGPL. Also, Microsoft provides a
restrictive set of "brand guidelines" for Skype - currently at
https://secure.skypeassets.com/content/dam/scom/pdf/skype_brand_guidelines.pdf
- which specifically states "Do not alter the Skype icon in any way, including
changing the colors, angle, or dimensions", but Breeze has made it monochrome.

Similarly, breeze-icons/icons/actions/22/im-facebook.svg is a modified version
of Facebook's own icon, which again is very definitely not LGPL. And again,
this project is also violating the owner's brand guidelines -
https://about.meta.com/brand/resources/facebook/logo/ - which specifically
state "DON'T change the color of the logo" and "DON'T use just the 'f' from our
logo".

These are only two examples, there are several others (e.g. im-google.svg ).


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Clone the git repo.
2. Read the copyright information.
3. Observe the presence of icons copyrighted by others without acknowledgement
or license compliance.

OBSERVED RESULT
There are lots.

EXPECTED RESULT
There shouldn't be any.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Irrelevant.

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