Copyleft

[budafist]

I was reminded of a friend that was all for copyleft so thought I'd look it up. It's quite interesting...It's mostly to do with software, but also is used in art and music. It means the thing that has been copylefted is free for use by anyone and that no one is allowed to take it and change it and make $ out of it.

Your thoughts?

Copyleft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft#searchInput)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Copyleft.svg/120px-Copyleft.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Copyleft.svg)

The "reversed c in a full circle" is the copyleft symbol. It is the copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright) symbol turned in the left direction. Unlike the copyright symbol it has no legal meaning.




Copyleft is a play on the word copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright) and is the practice of using copyright law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law) to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and require that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions.

Copyleft is commonly implemented by a license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License) and is applied to works such as computer software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_software), documents, music (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music), and art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art). Whereas copyright law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law), by default, automatically restricts the right to make and redistribute copies of an author's work, a copyleft license uses copyright law to ensure that every person who receives a copy of a work has the same rights to study, use, modify, and also redistribute both the work, and derived versions of the work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work). Such licenses typically do so by requiring that the same license terms apply to all redistributed versions of the work. The widest used and originating copyleft license is the GNU General Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) (GPL).

[mac.FINN]

I'd never heard of that before... that's pretty awesome.

[Craig B]

I like it. i think it's a cool idea.

[hewligan]

It's not that you're not allowed to make money from it, though (in fact, strictly speaking, software you're not allowed to make money from is not copyleft). Redhat Software (http://www.redhat.com/) is quite a large corporation that make money from software that is copyleft.

The term was coined by Richard Stallman for the Gnu project (http://www.gnu.org/), and the canonical example of a copyleft license is the Gnu Public License (GPL). It basically says that you are allowed to charge money for the software, but that anyone who recieves the software must be given the following rights:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Which means that the traditional business model of simply charging for software isn't particularly good for copylefted software. In the case of software, people sometimes charge for distribution, often charge for support and security updates, and others charge for services related to the software. There are a lot of different business model options.

There are also fairly successful licenses for documentation (such as the Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL), which Wikipedia uses.

Still, beyond those two, copyleft licenses for other things haven't really taken off. Which is a pity. As someone who comes from a science background, the sharing of ideas, and the building off previous work that is the basis of this whole thing appeals to me a lot.

Unfortunately, in a lot of areas, the current copyright system is not serving us well.

[Ned]

From those descriptions, it sounds like copyleft means open-source for software, and public domain for everything else?

[hewligan]

Well, Stallman with GNU and the Free Software Association basically started the open source thing. Although, Stallman doesn't like the term "Open Source," and prefers the term "Free Software" - with the proviso that he means "Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Free Beer."

And copyleft quite explicitly does not mean public domain. The problem with making things public domain is that it is then possible to take previous works, and create a new work that does not allow the freedoms listed.

Basically it boils down to: I share my stuff with you, but in return, if you create something with what I've given you, then you have to share it too.

Stallman's interest is really in the area of software, and by association that of documentation. So there are quite succesful models for software and technical information.

I don't think any of the ateempts to extend it beyond those areas have been particularly succesful. Having said that, Lawrence Lessig, a law professor heavily involved with the free software movement, has tried with his creative commons (http://creativecommons.org/) licenses. These are quite widely used for a variety of stuff.

[budafist]

Oh it makes me mad about science - I wish research were available to the world.

If it's been done somewhere in the world, it shouldn't have to be done again. I'm thinking mostly with animal testing. One animal for one test should be enough. When many scientists are conducting the same experiements, well, it's a bit of a waste of life and effort IMO.

Sorry, hippie rant there... :(

[Cyan_Ide]

Oh it makes me mad about science - I wish research were available to the world.

If it's been done somewhere in the world, it shouldn't have to be done again. I'm thinking mostly with animal testing. One animal for one test should be enough. When many scientists are conducting the same experiements, well, it's a bit of a waste of life and effort IMO.

Sorry, hippie rant there... :(

That, and the big companies are starting to patent the genes themselves that cause/affect the big diseases (cancer, diabetes, etc.), effectively crippling potential research that can be done to cure them.

[budafist]

That is wrong in so many ways.

Can the people of the world oppose this?

[urstwile]

Science should be free from the capitalist model, in my opinion, because you're right Buda, it seems unethical to duplicate all of this research, particularly when there's so much to learn about. Why not spread the knowledge and also, tag team a bit. If so many are afflicted with something, why rely on each country to individually come up with their solution to varying afflictions. Shouldn't research, finally, be a world view thing?

I remember reading quite a few years ago about how Brazil (http://www.aegis.com/news/bbc/2001/BB010634.html) decided to research and produce AIDS drugs (for a much lower price) and how big pharmaceuticals were trying to prevent them from doing so under the free trade act, put forth by NAFTA. Largely supported by the U.S.

I myself happen to think that free trade is largely a euphemism for "I'm going to make as much money off of this as I can and make sure that nobody else can come up with an alternative that will hurt my profits."

[Zantor_12]

That is a really cool image. I never thought of the word Copyright in terms of 'right' and 'left' but they have taken a common image and put an unusual twist on it. Nice.

[Ned]

I never thought of the word Copyright in terms of 'right' and 'left'

You are obviously not a politician. :D

[Zantor_12]

Haha! Ni, I'm definetly not. I didn't even realize what I had just said...