File:2013-07-19 grow-your-own-ideas by-David-Revoy.jpg

Use of trademarks in this file on Wikimedia Commons is believed to be okay because:

1. the trademarks are visually reworked and obscured and distorted, and
2. the trademarks' meanings are placed in a new (opposite) context than their originally intended use (i.e. the artwork is transformative for the obvious purpose of criticism and parody), and
3. the trademarks are a necessary component to illustrate the main idea of the artwork, and
4. the depiction of trademarks in this artwork is believed to be de minimis because of their small size and inconspicuous positions in the composition and low brightness and visual rework (each of these components indicate that the purpose is not for the trademarks to fulfill their originally intended use in this artwork), because of their individual requirement (so the collective of trademarks forms a meaning), and because of their transformed symbolic meaning as a collective metaphor rather than their original individual intended meaning. When testing Wikimedia Commons guidelines if use of a copyrighted work satisfies de minimis here:
   1. the file is in use to illustrate X – False, and this particular criteria would be False even in a hypothetical case where X was the only trademark in the image. Because there is a critical distinction between "the file being used to illustrate X" and "X being used to illustrate the main idea of the artwork".
   2. the file is categorised in relation to X – False
   3. X is referenced in the filename – False
   4. X is referenced in the description – False
   5. X cannot be removed from the file without making the file useless – False. If one single trademark was removed then all remaining trademarks would still bring the artwork's main idea across. If every individual trademark were removed, then the artwork could not bring its main idea across. ("X" in this guideline is interpreted to mean "one specific trademark", not "all trademarks".)
   6. from other contextual clues (e.g., by comparison with a series of uploads by the same uploader) X is the reason for the creation of the file. – False. No single trademark was the reason for uploading this file. Nothing indicates that any single trademark was the reason for the creation of the artwork.