Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

drew Roberts said:
> Do you not understand my point?
>
> Copyright is the creation of the state and is backed up and enforced by the
> power of the state. Right?

If copyleft is a subset of copyright, then copyleft is also
a creation of the state, and this is useless, since both are
created by the state, or a subset of what is created by the
state.

You have to focus on the behaviour of the actors involved.

Copyright is a benefit granted to the first person to
write or invent a work. Copyright is for the immediate
benefit of the individual and for the delayed benefit
of the community/public. The first individual to write
or invent a work gets exclusive rights to that work,
and the community cannot treat that work as public domain.

The individual gets an immediate benefit.
The community gets an limited benefit initially,
having to pay for the work if the author chooses
to hold it All Rights Reserved.

The complete benefit to the community is
delayed until the work enters the public domain.



Copyleft is used by contributers to place a work
in the community immediately. Rights to the work
are licensed to the community so that any individual
can do what they want with the work, except distribute
a proprietary version of teh work.

The community gets immediate benefit of a work
placed under copyleft.

Individuals cannot get the complete benefit of the
work until teh work enters the public domain.

Individuals cannot create derived proprietary forks
until the work enters the public domain.



Under copyright, the state/community surrenders the right
to treat a new work as public domain and gives exclusive
rights for a while to the individual who created it.

Under copyleft, the individual licenses the rights to
the work so that the community can treat the work as
community property immediately.


Copyright is a promise made by the state to individuals.
Copyleft is a promise made by an individual to the community.



Freedom of speech is a promise made by the states to its citizens.
"Congress shall not abridge freedom of speech"

Copyleft is a loyalty oath by an individual to a community.
"I give my code to the community for any use as long as it
remains in the community"



Copyleft is not about "rights" the way "freedom of speech" is a right.
Copyleft is about building a community, allowign people to contribute
to that community, and protecting the works inside the community.

Copyleft at its heart is about preventing an individual from taking
community works and using those works to compete against the community.

It's a great system, but isn't about individual rights first,
community demands second. The copyleft community demands that
individuals keep copyleft works within the community.

Freedom of speech is about an individual being able to do something
even if everyone else in the community would like to prevent him
from doing so.



It's the wrong metaphor.