Thinking of the latest Bill Gates rant this makes sense.
Right idea, but reversed. It's more like... thinking about this, the latest Bill Gates rant makes sense. The last thing billg wants is for the broader public interest in licensing terms to become a public procurement policy question. His rant was a response to the threat of discussions like this, not the other way around.
That isn't really the question. The question is, if say, your lovely Michigan, were buying software... why would they not consider GPL to be one positive factor when evaluating their purchase?
I don't imagine it's an explicit public policy goal in Michigan for your specific company to make as much money as possible. If GPL-ing the software would price you out of the market, then the gov't could either procure your software w/o the GPL, or go with a competitor that can provide more public interest oriented licensing than you can.
GPL doesn't have to be an absolute requirement, it could merely be a factor... just like price and quality. All other things being equal, it seems to me the government has an interest in promoting the sort of cross-pollination and collaborative environment that free licensing encourages, _especially_ in software it will be investing substantial monies, employees' time and training.
Am I the only one who remembers back when you could be the "proud commander of your own POLARIS SUB -- the most powerful weapon in the world!" for only $6.98 ??
any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license
Creepy, well, ok... I almost always find MSFT creepy.
But read that again: Doesn't it say that it forbids you to use a license which requires OTHER SOFTWARE distributed with yours to be subject to those conditions?
What the hell kind of license does that? GPL only covers derivative works, not other works distributed with the GPL'd original, no?
Believe who you will, but if Paula Samuelson says the point is controversial, I'm inclined to believe her. Perhaps the point isn't as obvious as the article makes it out to be.
"A related difficulty arises from the fact that fundamental legal concepts can be interpreted differently. For example, significantly different (and emphatic) views exist on whether the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law is merely a defense against a charge of infringement or an affirmative right that allows copying in specific circumstances. The difference matters, for both theoretical and pragmatic reasons. If fair use is an affirmative right, for instance, then it ought to be acceptable to take positive actions, such as circumventing technical protection mechanisms (e.g., decoding an encrypted file), in order to exercise fair use. However, if fair use is merely a defense against infringement, the same action may be unjustifiable. The basic point is very controversial. While one legal scholar has labeled as "absurd" the notion that fair use could be an affirmative right, other scholars suggest a constitutional basis for affirmative fair use rights."
THE DIGITAL DILEMMA: A Perspective on Intellectual Property in the Information Age by Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, and Randall Davis, MIT. (page 13)
But, copyright law was created before the U.S. reached the Industrial age... The general attitude for copyrights has shifted dramatically during the past 200 years.
Not meaning to pick on U.S.-centrism, but copyright laws were created before the U.S. reached _any_ age, and the original purpose was to... wait for it... protect media cartels from competition and maybe be a handy mechanism for censorship, to boot.
Within the last 200 years, well, fair enough. The U.S. constitution said the purpose was to motivate further technological and intellectual progress. But within many other countries (especially in Europe) there is much more attention/justification around 'author's rights' than around 'scientific progress'.
It's a sad, but true, fact that the obviously insincere rationalization for the Mickey Mouse copyright extension is at least in part true: it _did_ bring the U.S. into line with international copyright practice. (And no, I don't buy the standardization line... I said it was obviously insincere.)
Jack Valenti is on the record saying he wants his full consitutional due. Since congress is only allowed to grant copyright for a 'limited-time,' Jack wants it to be "Infinity minus a day."
(I know, I know... I can do the math. But that just makes it funnier, no?)
Sprigman states that Disney's 1967 movie The Jungle Book came out a year after Kipling's copyright expired, but I can't see how, under the terms of the 1909 copyright law, an 1894 book could have had its U.S. copyright expire much later than 1950.
One way it could happen (though I don't know if it's the case here) is that there used to be renewal deadlines, and if you missed them... too bad. An example that comes to mind is It's A Wonderful Life (1946) whose copyright shouldn't be up for quite a while yet... but which became popular when it lapsed into the public domain through someone missing a filing deadline.
The short version is that Lessig claims (and I agree) that the question is backwards. Copyright doesn't 'take property' or 'force people to give it away'. It silences others' speech.
He argues that that cost (of silencing speech) is worth it for limited times, because it encourages creative activity. But beyond the point where it encourages creativity, the onus should be upon those who want extended terms to justify continuing to silence speech.
If this seems absurd to you, (that copyright silences speech), it goes to show how deeply we have allowed the property/piracy vocabulary to dominate our discourse about copyright. We've forgotten that 'intellectual property' as a concept is a construct, made for a purpose... There is nothing intrinsic in the idea that if you make a song and sing it in public that everyone will have to pay you, forever, if they remember that song and sing it themselves.
Not only am I not a lawyer, but I'm also not American... so take any Supreme Court comments from me with more than a grain of salt.
That being said, I seem to recall Lessig commenting that this is not a Right vs. Left issue, especially in the Supreme Court. He made the comment that the argument to the conservatives of the court (notably Scalia, for whom he clerked I think?) might be the easiest... Aka: The intention of the Framers (limited time) is being subverted by Congress' perpetually-extending copyright term limits.
(And this is one time Valenti may not have helped his own cause, since he is on the record saying that in his book 'infinity minus a day' is an acceptably limited term)
It's interesting news, but I can't help feeling that the more interesting question is still out there waiting for an answer...
What about copyleft(ish) licenses for the non-software world?
From the article: "The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment," reads the declaration.
It calls for "free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose".
Nothing in there about modification and redistribution.
Could modification rights work for non-software copyrightable content? I don't know.
But the idea that it could be useful doesn't seem that crazy.
- Maybe you made a wonderful map of a region, but you want to leave open the chance that others will improve on specific areas and pass the whole thing along. (and you're willing to take the risk that they botch the whole thing up)
- Maybe you don't mind if people take your song, add an extra verse, (or change a person's name), and pass it on. (and you're willing to take the risk that some bozo will fill that verse with beowulf clusters and profanity)
- Maybe you've made a simple customized textbook and you'd be pleased as punch if people drop out the half where you didn't really know what you were talking about and replace it with something really informative. (and you're willing to take the chance that they drop out the half where you did really know what you were talking about and leave the junk half).
To me, it seems as though copyleft makes as much sense in the non-software world as it does the software world.
Maybe the problem is just that in the non-software world giving away these freedoms is harder to take. (A comment I _know_ is going to come back to haunt me, since as a non-programmer I have no personal idea at all how hard it is to relinquish control... I'm just talking. er, typing.)
(Or, alternatively, I suppose it could just be that in software the functional aspect of code is a built-in bozo filter for ill-conceived changes? You think?)
IMHO, this idea is both reasonable and constructive. It's certainly not the radical pseudo-communism the purveyors of FUD will inevitably make it out to be.
Personally, I like the way Lessig put it in _The Future of Ideas_ when he argued that the government should encourage the development of open code.
"Open code... risks none of the dangers of strategic behavior that closed code, or controlled networks, do. If open code is used strategically, then the resource to counter that strategic action are always available. Innovators can rely upon the promise of open code in their innovations. They need not worry that what they develop will be swallowed by the platform they develop for.
This encouragement should not be coercive. There's no reason to ban or punish proprietary providers. People should be free to develop code however they wish.
But a government has its own interests, and closing its resources to others is not one of them. If the federal government develops a system to handle welfare claims, what reason does it have for hiding the code for that system from the states? Why not let the states take that code and build upon it? And if the states, then so, too, with the universities. In each case, the aim should be to expand the reach of these powerful and valuable resources, not to contract and hoard them when to value to the hoarding exists." The Future of Ideas, p.249
Re:more info on the secret settlement
on
ArsDigita Shut Down
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Beats me why RH bought the company, when they could have brought in - openacs
Sure as shootin' OpenACS has much to do with the reason RH bought the company which made the original... not least because OpenACS is made to run with Postgresql (aka: Red Hat database).
But perhaps the client list was worth something, too, you think?
Notwithstanding the fact that your point was funny, you give a great example of why it's dangerous and unfortunate that we apply the vocabulary of physical property to the concept of "intellectual property".
it is intellectual property that's been unclaimed
...as if intellectual property is part of a landscape you want to stake your claim to, instead of being part of the creative process. Sigh. If only we could discuss it differently, as a means instead of an end, or a journey more than a destination.
Q. Does the idea of copyleft make sense for things other than software?
A. Only in so far as there is value in copying beyond fair use.
On the question of utility, (and supposing for the moment that we like the viral aspect of copyleft/GPL), I think I would amend the answer above to:
It does, to the extent there are (potentially) valuable uses of your content which would not be covered by the doctrine of 'fair use'.
Copyleft not only removes restrictions on copying and redistribution, but also for modification and redistribution. It is a license for collaboration.
So, if you can think of any way that someone else might build off copyrightable content you have created, (be it research/writings, music, art, maps...),
and if you want to allow them to do so freely and without reliance upon permissions from you, (i.e., you don't care about having the right to veto changes you disapprove of),
and you can live with the possibility of them getting paid and you not,
BUT you feel that in return for your giving them these extra rights to make use of your work, they should agree to continue to give these rights to whomever else wants to work on the result (the combined product of your original work and their modifications/additions to it),
then, YES, Copyleft makes sense.
Examples? (I don't know, I never said I create content.):-)
Off the top of my head:
Maybe you made a wonderful map of a region, but you want to leave open the chance that others will improve on specific areas and pass the whole thing along. (and you're willing to take the risk that they botch the whole thing up)
Maybe you don't mind if people take your song, add an extra verse, (or change a person's name), and pass it on. (and you're willing to take the risk that some bozo will fill that verse with beowulf clusters and profanity)
Maybe you've made a simple customized textbook and you'd be pleased as punch if people drop out the half where you didn't really know what you were talking about and replace it with something really informative. (and you're willing to take the chance that they drop out the half where you did really know what you were talking about and leave the junk half).
Copyleft makes as much sense in the non-software world as it does the software world... But maybe (original thought coming on?) in the non-software world giving away these freedoms is harder to take.
Actually, now that I think of it: it's not that coders are less sensitive, but could it be that in software the functional aspect of code is a built-in bozo filter for ill-conceived changes? (If the modifications break it they probably won't get far. Few people, (MSFT jokes aside), will have a strong/ideological attachment to broken/malfunctioning code. In changing writings/music/art I see more liklihood of offending the original author. (and now wait to be corrected by protective coders and/or those mercilessly flamed by them.)
This is a great post and I'm personally going to make a note of your bolded/emphasized summary of the GPL, because it is so clear. (I'm trying to work on a Master's thesis on the question of whether GPL-ish licenses have any place, beyond software, in the context of international development. Your bolds and important pauses make it clear what the GPL is.)
I found one aspect of your post confusing, though, at first.
Q. If, for example, research results are published under copyleft, would that mean that any subsequent work that cites the research would also have to be copyleft? [...]
A. [...] If we're talking specifically about the GPL, then yes, that's exactly what it means.
In fact, that isn't what it means. (Although you may have been mostly referring in your response to the latter part of the original poster's question, which I omitted above, I didn't realize it at first.)
As you explained later for those who took the time to read your full post --
In your case, if you find some GPL research that you want to build on, but without making your research GPL, then treat the GPL work as a fully copyrighted work. You can quote selectively from it using the existing fair use defence [...].
IMHO, this is exactly right. The license, GPL or otherwise, is a copyright license and as such, restricts only what copyright will allow. If normal copyright would permit the citation, (i.e., footnotes/bibliographies/appropriately-brief quotations), then you have nothing to fear from copyleft.
Scare tactic or not, we get plenty of email here, and we have most definitely received word viruses as email attachments. (as well as most every other kind, I suspect.)
they are NOT hard for people to read because 95% of people use Windows
Or, you could say, they are not hard for 95% of people to read, I suppose.
Quick math: 5% of installed base of computers, (Or, more accurately, just say whatever the number of people who don't run office is.) You're in the multiple millions, no?
The government department I worked in last year ran Lotus Word Star, all 1200 people. For us,.doc files were a major problem. (as were.lwp files, of course, going the other way...)
However you want to count it, though, they are hard to read safely, so I guess you could just say that.
Linux is a minority, like it or not, you cannot expect the whole world to change on your account.
A guy can hope, can't he? Seriously, I don't expect the whole world to change... just those folks who want me to be able to read their attachments.;-)
Not to mention my other guilty secret... (oh, the karma debacle)... I don't run linux, yet. I just want a file that includes formatting and can be read by the widest audience possible, and if it hurts microsoft's efforts at monopolization a bit in the meantime, that's a price I'm willing to pay. I'll stick with the original poster's.rtf suggestion and the modest evangelizing of that extra line, though I admit I may remove the Microsoft bit if it feels inappropriate. (ie: a very formal email relationship.)
that Judge Motz didn't blab to any reporters in his chambers that the settlement was patently unjust or that the microsoft execs were behaving like spoiled children.
(Don't mind me, but I've been burned before with false-relief that the truth will out.)
Point well taken, and I agree with your.rtf advice.
However, would it really hurt to add the line "Besides, as I tell friends and coworkers with.doc file problems,.doc files often contain viruses, they're hard for many people to read, _and_ they encourage microsoft to keep up its efforts to lock up the entire computing universe. So, really,(and this is just my opinion) it's probably a good thing in general to get in the habit of saving word files as.rtf format and sharing them that way. Almost any word processor you can think of will be able to read the files then, and you're doing a good deed to boot."
Would that really make me a prick?
(Somehow I just _know_ asking that question is a mistake.)
In round two of Valenti vs. Lessig a crucial question arose but due to the to-and-fro of debating was only addressed anecdotally.
The question was one Valenti posed to you. To paraphrase it roughly: "Who cares? I would like someone to explain to me what harm is being done to the world by Mickey Mouse's copyright being extended twenty years. How does that harm anyone's ability to be creative or incentive to be creative."
In the debate you only had the opportunity to present an anecdotal response. (A teacher whose class film projects couldn't be shared due to copyright infringement fears, I think.)
Beyond the anecdote, however, a clear answer would be very helpful. We can all see that the copyright extension bargain was one-sided: copyright holders profited and the public gained nothing. We see the inequity in the action, we sense that the fix was in, and we resent it. But resentment over seeming corruption and the copyright holders' good fortune can only take us so far.
A clear conception of direct harm to the public might be far more persuasive than the secondary harm of the copyright holders getting a really sweet deal. I kept hoping during the debate that the opportunity would come for you to address the question more fully, but it never did.
Discussing 'the public domain' as a conceptual meeting place/workspace is different from reading the section of the dictionary definition of 'public domain' which is especially applicable to licenses.
OSS/FS licenses are not public domain licenses. Right. (again)
But that doesn't mean that Free Software and Open Source don't belong in a discussion of the public domain.
Posting in response to an article on a very interesting conference and complaining it doesn't belong because you can point to an example of the narrower defintion is... well...
It's probably fair to say that there is little legal overlap between OSS / FS licenses and public domain as it is defined by Mirriam Webster.
I do think that Paula Samuelson's article gives a much more complete and interesting examination of the concept of public domain than is possible from a dictionary definition, though.
But if you want to focus only on the dictionary definition of "public domain"... (and who could fault you for such an academic insistence on precision ?)... then I think you're right.
Exactly what does Open Source have to do with IP licensed in the public domain? Very little.
This comment is either very pedantic or shows very little imagination. Reading the papers on the site, they are all about how to make the 'intellectual commons' or the 'public domain' of knowledge viable in the legal/cultural climate we live in. ie: They're about how to create viable mechanisms for providing for non-exclusive access to intellectual property.
Does that really have very little to do with Open Source?
Yes, GPL and BSD are not 'public domain' licenses. But to say that Open Source "would be much better suited to a conference... to ensure the intentions of those who wrote the various licenses... are honored" is hardly a reasonable comment. Intellectual property licenses, including Open source ones, require mechanisms to ensure that authors' wishes are protected.
But I hope there's a bit more to Open Source than that!
Slashdot Mirror
Thinking of the latest Bill Gates rant this makes sense.
Right idea, but reversed.
It's more like... thinking about this, the latest Bill Gates rant makes sense. The last thing billg wants is for the broader public interest in licensing terms to become a public procurement policy question. His rant was a response to the threat of discussions like this, not the other way around.
That isn't really the question. The question is, if say, your lovely Michigan, were buying software... why would they not consider GPL to be one positive factor when evaluating their purchase?
I don't imagine it's an explicit public policy goal in Michigan for your specific company to make as much money as possible. If GPL-ing the software would price you out of the market, then the gov't could either procure your software w/o the GPL, or go with a competitor that can provide more public interest oriented licensing than you can.
GPL doesn't have to be an absolute requirement, it could merely be a factor... just like price and quality. All other things being equal, it seems to me the government has an interest in promoting the sort of cross-pollination and collaborative environment that free licensing encourages, _especially_ in software it will be investing substantial monies, employees' time and training.
1/5th to 1/8th the size of Canada
more like 1/25th , eh!
Am I the only one who remembers back when you could be the "proud commander of your own POLARIS SUB -- the most powerful weapon in the world!" for only $6.98 ??
any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license
Creepy, well, ok... I almost always find MSFT creepy.
But read that again:
Doesn't it say that it forbids you to use a license which requires OTHER SOFTWARE distributed with yours to be subject to those conditions?
What the hell kind of license does that? GPL only covers derivative works, not other works distributed with the GPL'd original, no?
Believe who you will, but if Paula Samuelson says the point is controversial, I'm inclined to believe her. Perhaps the point isn't as obvious as the article makes it out to be.
"A related difficulty arises from the fact that fundamental legal concepts can be interpreted differently. For example, significantly different (and emphatic) views exist on whether the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law is merely a defense against a charge of infringement or an affirmative right that allows copying in specific circumstances. The difference matters, for both theoretical and pragmatic reasons. If fair use is an affirmative right, for instance, then it ought to be acceptable to take positive actions, such as circumventing technical protection mechanisms (e.g., decoding an encrypted file), in order to exercise fair use. However, if fair use is merely a defense against infringement, the same action may be unjustifiable. The basic point is very controversial. While one legal scholar has labeled as "absurd" the notion that fair use could be an affirmative right, other scholars suggest a constitutional basis for affirmative fair use rights."
THE DIGITAL DILEMMA:
A Perspective on Intellectual Property in the Information Age by
Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, and Randall Davis, MIT. (page 13)
But, copyright law was created before the U.S. reached the Industrial age ... The general attitude for copyrights has shifted dramatically during the past 200 years.
Not meaning to pick on U.S.-centrism, but copyright laws were created before the U.S. reached _any_ age, and the original purpose was to... wait for it... protect media cartels from competition and maybe be a handy mechanism for censorship, to boot.
Within the last 200 years, well, fair enough. The U.S. constitution said the purpose was to motivate further technological and intellectual progress. But within many other countries (especially in Europe) there is much more attention/justification around 'author's rights' than around 'scientific progress'.
It's a sad, but true, fact that the obviously insincere rationalization for the Mickey Mouse copyright extension is at least in part true: it _did_ bring the U.S. into line with international copyright practice. (And no, I don't buy the standardization line... I said it was obviously insincere.)
How much more can you want?
Jack Valenti is on the record saying he wants his full consitutional due. Since congress is only allowed to grant copyright for a 'limited-time,' Jack wants it to be "Infinity minus a day."
(I know, I know... I can do the math. But that just makes it funnier, no?)
Sprigman states that Disney's 1967 movie The Jungle Book came out a year after Kipling's copyright expired, but I can't see how, under the terms of the 1909 copyright law, an 1894 book could have had its U.S. copyright expire much later than 1950.
One way it could happen (though I don't know if it's the case here) is that there used to be renewal deadlines, and if you missed them... too bad. An example that comes to mind is It's A Wonderful Life (1946) whose copyright shouldn't be up for quite a while yet... but which became popular when it lapsed into the public domain through someone missing a filing deadline.
Jack Valenti posed this exact question to Lawrence Lessig in their second debate. (well, this approximate question... it related to Mickey Mouse).
Lessig's detailed answer is here.
The short version is that Lessig claims (and I agree) that the question is backwards. Copyright doesn't 'take property' or 'force people to give it away'. It silences others' speech.
He argues that that cost (of silencing speech) is worth it for limited times, because it encourages creative activity. But beyond the point where it encourages creativity, the onus should be upon those who want extended terms to justify continuing to silence speech.
If this seems absurd to you, (that copyright silences speech), it goes to show how deeply we have allowed the property/piracy vocabulary to dominate our discourse about copyright. We've forgotten that 'intellectual property' as a concept is a construct, made for a purpose... There is nothing intrinsic in the idea that if you make a song and sing it in public that everyone will have to pay you, forever, if they remember that song and sing it themselves.
Not only am I not a lawyer, but I'm also not American... so take any Supreme Court comments from me with more than a grain of salt.
That being said, I seem to recall Lessig commenting that this is not a Right vs. Left issue, especially in the Supreme Court. He made the comment that the argument to the conservatives of the court (notably Scalia, for whom he clerked I think?) might be the easiest...
Aka: The intention of the Framers (limited time) is being subverted by Congress' perpetually-extending copyright term limits.
(And this is one time Valenti may not have helped his own cause, since he is on the record saying that in his book 'infinity minus a day' is an acceptably limited term)
It's interesting news, but I can't help feeling that the more interesting question is still out there waiting for an answer...
What about copyleft(ish) licenses for the non-software world?
From the article: "The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment," reads the declaration.
It calls for "free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose".
Nothing in there about modification and redistribution.
Could modification rights work for non-software copyrightable content? I don't know.
But the idea that it could be useful doesn't seem that crazy.
- Maybe you made a wonderful map of a region, but you want to leave open the chance that others will improve on specific areas and pass the whole thing along. (and you're willing to take the risk that they botch the whole thing up)
- Maybe you don't mind if people take your song, add an extra verse, (or change a person's name), and pass it on. (and you're willing to take the risk that some bozo will fill that verse with beowulf clusters and profanity)
- Maybe you've made a simple customized textbook and you'd be pleased as punch if people drop out the half where you didn't really know what you were talking about and replace it with something really informative. (and you're willing to take the chance that they drop out the half where you did really know what you were talking about and leave the junk half).
To me, it seems as though copyleft makes as much sense in the non-software world as it does the software world.
Maybe the problem is just that in the non-software world giving away these freedoms is harder to take. (A comment I _know_ is going to come back to haunt me, since as a non-programmer I have no personal idea at all how hard it is to relinquish control... I'm just talking. er, typing.)
(Or, alternatively, I suppose it could just be that in software the functional aspect of code is a built-in bozo filter for ill-conceived changes? You think?)
IMHO, this idea is both reasonable and constructive. It's certainly not the radical pseudo-communism the purveyors of FUD will inevitably make it out to be.
... risks none of the dangers of strategic behavior that closed code, or controlled networks, do. If open code is used strategically, then the resource to counter that strategic action are always available. Innovators can rely upon the promise of open code in their innovations. They need not worry that what they develop will be swallowed by the platform they develop for.
Personally, I like the way Lessig put it in _The Future of Ideas_ when he argued that the government should encourage the development of open code.
"Open code
This encouragement should not be coercive. There's no reason to ban or punish proprietary providers. People should be free to develop code however they wish.
But a government has its own interests, and closing its resources to others is not one of them. If the federal government develops a system to handle welfare claims, what reason does it have for hiding the code for that system from the states? Why not let the states take that code and build upon it? And if the states, then so, too, with the universities. In each case, the aim should be to expand the reach of these powerful and valuable resources, not to contract and hoard them when to value to the hoarding exists." The Future of Ideas, p.249
Beats me why RH bought the company, when they could have brought in - openacs
Sure as shootin' OpenACS has much to do with the reason RH bought the company which made the original... not least because OpenACS is made to run with Postgresql (aka: Red Hat database).
But perhaps the client list was worth something, too, you think?
World Bank Global Development Gateway anyone?
Notwithstanding the fact that your point was funny, you give a great example of why it's dangerous and unfortunate that we apply the vocabulary of physical property to the concept of "intellectual property".
it is intellectual property that's been unclaimed
...as if intellectual property is part of a landscape you want to stake your claim to, instead of being part of the creative process. Sigh. If only we could discuss it differently, as a means instead of an end, or a journey more than a destination.
Q. Does the idea of copyleft make sense for things other than software?
...),
:-)
A. Only in so far as there is value in copying beyond fair use.
On the question of utility, (and supposing for the moment that we like the viral aspect of copyleft/GPL), I think I would amend the answer above to:
It does, to the extent there are (potentially) valuable uses of your content which would not be covered by the doctrine of 'fair use'.
Copyleft not only removes restrictions on copying and redistribution, but also for modification and redistribution. It is a license for collaboration.
So, if you can think of any way that someone else might build off copyrightable content you have created, (be it research/writings, music, art, maps
and if you want to allow them to do so freely and without reliance upon permissions from you, (i.e., you don't care about having the right to veto changes you disapprove of),
and you can live with the possibility of them getting paid and you not,
BUT you feel that in return for your giving them these extra rights to make use of your work, they should agree to continue to give these rights to whomever else wants to work on the result (the combined product of your original work and their modifications/additions to it),
then, YES, Copyleft makes sense.
Examples? (I don't know, I never said I create content.)
Off the top of my head:
Maybe you made a wonderful map of a region, but you want to leave open the chance that others will improve on specific areas and pass the whole thing along. (and you're willing to take the risk that they botch the whole thing up)
Maybe you don't mind if people take your song, add an extra verse, (or change a person's name), and pass it on. (and you're willing to take the risk that some bozo will fill that verse with beowulf clusters and profanity)
Maybe you've made a simple customized textbook and you'd be pleased as punch if people drop out the half where you didn't really know what you were talking about and replace it with something really informative. (and you're willing to take the chance that they drop out the half where you did really know what you were talking about and leave the junk half).
Copyleft makes as much sense in the non-software world as it does the software world... But maybe (original thought coming on?) in the non-software world giving away these freedoms is harder to take.
Actually, now that I think of it: it's not that coders are less sensitive, but could it be that in software the functional aspect of code is a built-in bozo filter for ill-conceived changes? (If the modifications break it they probably won't get far. Few people, (MSFT jokes aside), will have a strong/ideological attachment to broken/malfunctioning code. In changing writings/music/art I see more liklihood of offending the original author. (and now wait to be corrected by protective coders and/or those mercilessly flamed by them.)
This is a great post and I'm personally going to make a note of your bolded/emphasized summary of the GPL, because it is so clear. (I'm trying to work on a Master's thesis on the question of whether GPL-ish licenses have any place, beyond software, in the context of international development. Your bolds and important pauses make it clear what the GPL is.)
I found one aspect of your post confusing, though, at first.
Q. If, for example, research results are published under copyleft, would that mean that any subsequent work that cites the research would also have to be copyleft? [...]
A. [...] If we're talking specifically about the GPL, then yes, that's exactly what it means.
In fact, that isn't what it means. (Although you may have been mostly referring in your response to the latter part of the original poster's question, which I omitted above, I didn't realize it at first.)
As you explained later for those who took the time to read your full post --
In your case, if you find some GPL research that you want to build on, but without making your research GPL, then treat the GPL work as a fully copyrighted work. You can quote selectively from it using the existing fair use defence [...].
IMHO, this is exactly right. The license, GPL or otherwise, is a copyright license and as such, restricts only what copyright will allow. If normal copyright would permit the citation, (i.e., footnotes/bibliographies/appropriately-brief quotations), then you have nothing to fear from copyleft.
You'll be rich beyond the dreams of Avarice!
That's called a scare tactic.
.doc files were a major problem. (as were .lwp files, of course, going the other way...)
;-)
.rtf suggestion and the modest evangelizing of that extra line, though I admit I may remove the Microsoft bit if it feels inappropriate. (ie: a very formal email relationship.)
Scare tactic or not, we get plenty of email here, and we have most definitely received word viruses as email attachments. (as well as most every other kind, I suspect.)
they are NOT hard for people to read because 95% of people use Windows
Or, you could say, they are not hard for 95% of people to read, I suppose.
Quick math: 5% of installed base of computers, (Or, more accurately, just say whatever the number of people who don't run office is.) You're in the multiple millions, no?
The government department I worked in last year ran Lotus Word Star, all 1200 people. For us,
However you want to count it, though, they are hard to read safely, so I guess you could just say that.
Linux is a minority, like it or not, you cannot expect the whole world to change on your account.
A guy can hope, can't he? Seriously, I don't expect the whole world to change... just those folks who want me to be able to read their attachments.
Not to mention my other guilty secret... (oh, the karma debacle)... I don't run linux, yet. I just want a file that includes formatting and can be read by the widest audience possible, and if it hurts microsoft's efforts at monopolization a bit in the meantime, that's a price I'm willing to pay. I'll stick with the original poster's
that Judge Motz didn't blab to any reporters in his chambers that the settlement was patently unjust or that the microsoft execs were behaving like spoiled children.
(Don't mind me, but I've been burned before with false-relief that the truth will out.)
Point well taken, and I agree with your .rtf advice.
.doc file problems, .doc files often contain viruses, they're hard for many people to read, _and_ they encourage microsoft to keep up its efforts to lock up the entire computing universe. So, really,(and this is just my opinion) it's probably a good thing in general to get in the habit of saving word files as .rtf format and sharing them that way. Almost any word processor you can think of will be able to read the files then, and you're doing a good deed to boot."
However, would it really hurt to add the line "Besides, as I tell friends and coworkers with
Would that really make me a prick?
(Somehow I just _know_ asking that question is a mistake.)
In round two of Valenti vs. Lessig a crucial question arose but due to the to-and-fro of debating was only addressed anecdotally.
The question was one Valenti posed to you. To paraphrase it roughly: "Who cares? I would like someone to explain to me what harm is being done to the world by Mickey Mouse's copyright being extended twenty years. How does that harm anyone's ability to be creative or incentive to be creative."
In the debate you only had the opportunity to present an anecdotal response. (A teacher whose class film projects couldn't be shared due to copyright infringement fears, I think.)
Beyond the anecdote, however, a clear answer would be very helpful. We can all see that the copyright extension bargain was one-sided: copyright holders profited and the public gained nothing. We see the inequity in the action, we sense that the fix was in, and we resent it. But resentment over seeming corruption and the copyright holders' good fortune can only take us so far.
A clear conception of direct harm to the public might be far more persuasive than the secondary harm of the copyright holders getting a really sweet deal. I kept hoping during the debate that the opportunity would come for you to address the question more fully, but it never did.
Discussing 'the public domain' as a conceptual meeting place/workspace is different from reading the section of the dictionary definition of 'public domain' which is especially applicable to licenses.
OSS/FS licenses are not public domain licenses. Right. (again)
But that doesn't mean that Free Software and Open Source don't belong in a discussion of the public domain.
Posting in response to an article on a very interesting conference and complaining it doesn't belong because you can point to an example of the narrower defintion is... well...
It's probably fair to say that there is little legal overlap between OSS / FS licenses and public domain as it is defined by Mirriam Webster.
I do think that Paula Samuelson's article gives a much more complete and interesting examination of the concept of public domain than is possible from a dictionary definition, though.
But if you want to focus only on the dictionary definition of "public domain"... (and who could fault you for such an academic insistence on precision ?)... then I think you're right.
Exactly what does Open Source have to do with IP licensed in the public domain? Very little.
... to ensure the intentions of those who wrote the various licenses ... are honored" is hardly a reasonable comment. Intellectual property licenses, including Open source ones, require mechanisms to ensure that authors' wishes are protected.
This comment is either very pedantic or shows very little imagination. Reading the papers on the site, they are all about how to make the 'intellectual commons' or the 'public domain' of knowledge viable in the legal/cultural climate we live in. ie: They're about how to create viable mechanisms for providing for non-exclusive access to intellectual property.
Does that really have very little to do with Open Source? Yes, GPL and BSD are not 'public domain' licenses. But to say that Open Source "would be much better suited to a conference
But I hope there's a bit more to Open Source than that!