Copy Right

Copyright refers to the protection(s) of creative work that is published to the general public. It is an unfortunate misnomer in that its legal purpose is not to grant "rights to copy" (as the name would imply) but to protect the author of creative work from being denied legitimate gains (either material or immaterial) from their own creative and intellectual effort. So this includes, at minimum, FairCreditAssignment, but also implies no commercial (re-)use without permissions from copyright holder.

The concept of FairUse grants some protections to others for limited use of that work.

[Copyright:] A legal right granted by various governments to individuals and corporations.

This is not correct. Copyright is a "natural-born right" as everyone has some level of natural right to what they create. "That which is not explicitly enumerated is retained by the People."

The opposite of CopyLeft

If it is the opposite then why does CopyRight law protect CopyLeft? CopyLeft is a type of license protected by CopyRight

More important that CopyRight is CopyShould

Sounds true. AFAIK, RichardStallman saw the protections copyrights offer being used to create licenses that limit users rights. He saw that he could use those same protections to create contracts that would limit the rights of those who license software to limit users rights.

It's called fighting fire with fire, and his direct target is exactly the thing that he is troubled by. Yes, others get hurt indirectly (software is not as interoperable as it would be if all software was proprietary or all software was free).

The blind user in me wants the interoperability, period.

The thoughtful futurist will take the current situation over interoperability with proprietary code dominant. Because i believe that code that is available to all readers and coders is better code. And i mean better from everything from the ethical to the suiting-its-purpose sense.

And the paranoid programmer in me just wants to be able to see the code for myself. :-) -- JohnAbbe (yeah yeah, i'll find a better page for this)

What is the problem? CopyRight just means that owner retains the right to copy (sell) his product, it has nothing to do with whether the source is included or not. Plenty of products are being sold with full source included.

No, not exactly. CopyRight means that the owner has a long list of rights limited to em and those e gives them to. It has nothing to do with a "right to sell his product". It does have to do with eis right to prevent others from selling eis product. You are correct that CopyRight has nothing to do with wheater the source is included or not. - JesseFW

Also, nobody can stop you from modifying the software you own, and maybe distribute the changes (as a patch). What are the benefits of the GPL over normal CopyRight other than limiting its users?

Actually, many software licenses do exactly that. To quote from the standard Apple license(and I like Apple, this text is in everyone's license(Except for CopyLeft, and MIT families and the other OpenSource licenses.)) "you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof" - (from http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.shop-csc.com/store/pdf/MacOS_X_SLA.pdf (I couldn't find a copy on Apple's site.) Notice the mention of "disassemble, modify, or create derivative works"; that seems to cover "modifying software you own", and as for distributing the changes, even as a patch, well, see how many people you can get who will apply a binary patch. The non-techies won't know how, and the techies will know not to apply a binary patch. It is true that these licenses are currently totally unenforceable, although this is changing with the passing of UNCITA (old name, they changed it because it was too easy to remember), which specifically makes these sort of clauses enforceable. - JesseFW

http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/cyberspace/csl_lessons.html BrokenLink dec2003? -- ss

This makes for fine reading too: http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm -- StijnSanders

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CategoryLegal