Copyleft
IFL | 26.03.2005 05:13 | Analysis | Education | Technology
The easiest way to understand what it means is to firstly understand how copyright came about and what it really means.
Copyright
The concept of copyright was first introduced in Britain and brought in to force by the Statute Of Anne in 1710 (
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Copyright laws can have subtle differences depending on the country and origin of the author, particularly concerning the duration in years that a work is copyrighted for. This can make the whole field of copyright confusing. However the basic rights granted to an author or creator are that they alone can:
- make and sell copies of the work
- import or export the work
- make derivative works
- publicly perform the work
- sell or assign these rights to others
There are some exceptions to the exclusive rights held by the author. In the United States this comes under the heading of Fair Use (
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Anti-copyright
Anti-copyright is largely a political statement as it has no actual basis in law. It's not recognised as a legitimate way of distributing material. It does however allow the author or authors to exercise a moral right to denounce the concept of property accorded under the Berne Convention. Many anarchist works and publications use an anti-copyright notice in this way. A typical anti-copyright notice will say something along the lines of:
@nti-copyright. Please distribute this material freely.
What the above doesn't do is remove the creators rights under the Berne Convention. In law the work is still copyrighted and the author maintains the rights accorded by copyright law. A copyright waiver which addresses each of the exclusive rights such as the right of attribution, naming the original author or linking back to the article can be created but seldom is.
There's a lot of confusion concerning anti-copyright and its legality. For instance by waiving all rights is the author leaving their work open to corporate abuse, or to be twisted out of context by critics without the right of reply? Can someone else claim an unedited work as their own? The answer is no because their property rights are still intact. Although it would be morally difficult to exercise them having in theory already denounced them. An interesting dilemma which brings us to the concept of copyleft.
Copyleft
Copyleft has its roots in the open source movement (
![](/img/extlink.gif)
What copyleft does is to offer the original creator and the authors of any derivative works the opportunity to exercise some rights as opposed to all rights. Copyleft has now spread beyond the computing world to the creative community at large. Examples of copyleft licenses include the GNU General Public License - GPL(
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
This document is an example of how copyleft works in practice. This article and all news articles on cornersoul.com (
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
- copy, distribute, display and perform the work
- make derivative works
- However the following conditions apply:
Attribution: you must give the original author credit
Noncommercial: you may not use this work for commercial purposes
Share Alike: if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.
Unlike an anti-copyright notice copyleft is recognised in law and is enforceable. However any of the conditions can be waived by the copylefter if you get permission. For example if someone wanted to use this article or part of it for an anarchist publication or website I would happily waive all the conditions. If however a mainstream or corporate body wanted to use any of it I would maintain all the conditions and ensure credit was given and that it was distributed using a copyleft license and for non profit use.
Now can you think of a good reason not to copyleft your work? It's free, it's easy to do, it maintains the integrity of your work by ensuring it remains free and for non profit use, and not least it directly challenges the existing copyright laws and their emphasis on private property rights.
IFL
Homepage:
http://cornersoul.com
Comments
Display the following 14 comments