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Copyleft
"all rites reversed"

This nOde last updated June 4th, 2005 and is permanently morphing...
(3 Ak'bal (Night) / 1 Zots (Bat) - 3/260 - 12.19.12.6.3)

"The fundamental problem is that copyright pretends that information is property" - Ian Clarke, developer of Freenet
  

"We already know that our planet is merely a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, but now we are being told that we do not even hold a unique copyright on our own identities..." Alan Guth - physicist at M.I.T. re: O-Regions

General Public License

General Public License (jen`er-el pu`blik lì'sens) noun
The agreement under which software, such as the GNU (GNU's Not UNIX) utilities, is distributed by the Free Software Foundation. Anyone who has a copy of such a program may redistribute it to another party and may charge for distribution and support services, but may not restrict the other party from doing the same. A user may modify the program, but if the modified version is distributed, it must be clearly identified as such and is also covered under the General Public License. A distributor must also either provide source code or indicate where source code can be obtained.  Free software, Free Software Foundation, GNU. Also called copyleft.

The new Stephen King novel, published on the Web with a request that at least 75% of downloaders send the author $1 for the privilege, may well change the way all sorts of intellectual property is marketed, says R. Polk Wagner, a Penn law school professor. Traditional intellectual property theory holds that producers (that is, King) won't produce unless they have the ability to restrict the access of others to their goods. Here King is doing two significant things: First, he's only asking 75 percent of the people to pay him, thereby engaging in an unusual form of price discrimination where only those who feel the moral pressure to contribute will do so. That is, King acknowledges that not everyone will pay. Second, he's explicitly asking people to pay for his future services. The traditional theory of intellectual property would not consider this possibility. Classic intellectual property theory holds that producers must get paid for the works they've already created, not works they've yet to produce. The result could be troubling for publishers, who depend on the sacredness of intellectual property for their livelihood. If Stephen King, one of the 'poster boys' of the intellectual property industry, doesn't need intellectual property (protection) anymore, what does that mean for intellectual property generally?

Copyleft is a legal instrument designed to protect the rights of an author.

Copyleft is like traditional copyright but it's actually fundamentally different. Copyright is used to restrict the rights of people who use a material that's copyrighted. For example, you can't legally copy music or books that are copyrighted.

Anything covered by this license is Free (note the capital F) for use by anybody. If they want to make improvements, amendments, alternations, changes...call them what you will... they are utterly free to do so.  But,  the user cannot restrict access to the base material of the changes they've made.

This is typically applied to Free software. For example, if I write a program and you improve it, if you release your version to the wide world, you can't just ship the binary files, you must include all of the source code and you can't alter/restrict/amend the licensing arrangement. The license agreement must remain and be clearly stated. This may sound arcane, but it ensures that credit always goes where it is due and eliminates the possibility of someone capitalising on someone else's work illegally.

That's a rough'n'ready description of Copyleft. For more detailed information, consult the GNU Project whose founder, Richard Stallman, created the GNU General Public License. This is the most widely used form of Copyleft.

Faramir Copyleft © faramir@xania.demon.co.uk
$Header: /home/staff/rob/repository/projects/xania3/copyleft.html,v 1.2 1999/11/28 20:15:49 rob Exp $

• Free Music Philosophy v. 1.1
• sampling
• covers
• free software movement
• piracy
• Anomalog:
  • History Repeats Itself In The Music Industry
  • Honeywell Claims They Own The Trademark To The Circle
• "information wants to be free"
• track _Rites Of Reversal_ MP3 by Psychic TV off of _Sugarmorphosis_ CD (1994)
• dark ambient techno track _The Earnest Exchange Of Ideas_ MP3 (160k) by Shinjuku Filth off of _Raised By Wolves_ on Iridium
• open source
• Ready Mades
• Kathy Acker
• The KLF - Kopyright Liberation Front
• glitch ambient track _Kopyright Liberation_ MP3 (192k) by Squaremeter (m2) off of _Kopyright Liberation_ on Ant-Zen
• Negativland - "Copyright Infringement Is Your Best Entertainment Value"
• Exquisite Corpse - surrealist tactic

 

Free Art Licence
Version 1.1

Preamble:

With this Free Art Licence, you are given the right to freely copy, distribute and transform the artworks in the respect of the rights of the author.

Far from ignoring the rights of the author, this licence recognizes them and protects them. It reformulates their principle while making it possible for the public to make a creative use of the works of art. Whereas the use that is being made of the right to litterary and artistic property resulted in a restriction of the public's access to the works of art, the goal of the Free Art Licence is to support it.

The intention is to open the access and to authorize the use of the resources of an artwork by the greatest number of people. To make it available in order to multiply the pleasures, to create new conditions of creation to amplify the possibilities of creation. In the respect of the authors with the recognition and the defense of their moral rights.

Indeed, with the arrival of digital creation, the invention of the Internet and of free software, a new approach of creation and of production appeared. It is also the amplification of what has been tested by many contemporary artists.

Knowledge and creation are resources which must remain free to be still truly knowledge and creation. I.e. to remain a fundamental quest which is not directly related to a concrete application. Creating is discovering the unknown, it is inventing reality without any preoccupation about realism.

Thus, the object of art is not equivalent to the artistic object, finite and defined as such. This is the essential goal of this Free Art Licence: promoting and protecting artistic practices freed from the rules of the market economy.

DEFINITIONS

- Artwork:
It is a common artwork which includes the initial artwork as well as all posterior contributions (consequent originals and copies). It is created at the initiative of the initial author who, by this licence, defines the conditions according to which the contributions are made.

- Initial artwork:
It is the artwork created by the initiator of the common artwork, which copies will be modified by whoever wishes.

- Consequent artworks:
These are the proposals of the authors who contribute to the formation of the common artwork by making use of the reproduction rights, of distribution and of modification that the licence confers to them.

- Original (source or resource of work):
Dated specimen of the artwork, of its definition, of its partition or of its program which the author present like the reference for all further updatings, interpretations, copies or reproductions.

- Copy:
Any conforming reproduction of an original as defined by this licence.

- Author of the initial artwork:
It is the person who created the artwork at the origin of the tree structure of this modified artwork. By this licence, the author determines the conditions under which this work is done.

- Contributor:
Any person who contributes to the creation of the artwork. He is the author of an original work resulting from the modification of a copy of the initial artwork or the modification of a copy of a consequent artwork.
 

1. OBJECT

The object of this licence is to define the conditions according to which you can enjoy this work freely.
 

2. EXTENT OF THE USAGE

This artwork is subject to copyright, and the author, by this licence, specifies the extent to wich you can copy it, distribute it and modify it:
 

2.1 FREEDOM TO COPY (OR OF REPRODUCTION)

You have the right to copy this artwork for a personal use, for your friends, or for any other person and employing whatever technique.
 

2.2 FREEDOM TO DISTRIBUTE, TO INTERPRET (OR OF REPRESENTATION)

You can freely distribute the copies of these artworks, modified or not, whatever the support, whatever the place, for a fee or for free if you observe all the following conditions:
- attach this licence to the copies, in its entirety, or indicate precisely where the licence can be found,
- specify to the   recipient the name of the author of the originals,
- specify to the recipient where he will be able to access the originals (initial and/or consequent). The author of the original will be able, if he wishes to, to give you the right to diffuse the original under the same conditions as the copies.
 

2.3 FREEDOM TO MODIFY

You have the right to modify the copies of the originals (initial and consequent), which can be partial or not, in the respect of the conditions set in article 2.2 in the event of distribution (or representation) of the modified copy. The author of the original will be able, if he wishes to, to give you the right to modify the original under the same conditions as the copies.
 

3. INCORPORATION OF ARTWORK

All the elements of this artwork must remain free, this is why you are not allowed to integrate the originals in another work which would not be subject to this licence.
 

4. YOUR AUTHOR'S RIGHTS

The object of this licence is not to deny your author's rights on your contribution. By choosing to contribute to the evolution of this artwork, you only agree to give to others the same rights on your contribution as those which were granted to you by this licence.
 

5. DURATION OF THE LICENCE

This licence takes effect as of your acceptance of its provisions. The fact of copying, of distributing, or of modifying the artwork constitutes a tacit agreement. The duration of this licence is the duration of the author's rights attached to the artwork. If you do not respect the terms of this licence, you automatically lose the rights that it confers to you. If the legal status to which you are subject does not make it possible for you to respect the terms of this licence, you cannot make use of the rights which it confers.
 

6. VARIOUS VERSIONS OF THE LICENCE

This licence could be modified regularly, for its improvement, by its authors (the actors of the movement copyleft_attitude) by way of new numbered versions.

You have always the choice between being satisfied with the provisions contained in the version under which the copy was communicated to you or else, to use the provisions of one of the subsequent versions.
 

7. SUB-LICENCE

Sub-licences are not authorized by the present licence. Any person who wishes to make use of the rights that it confers will be directly bound to the author of the initial work.
 

8. THE LAW THAT IS APPLICABLE TO THE CONTRACT

This licence is subject to the French law.

INSTRUCTIONS:

- How to use the Free Art Licence?

To benefit from the Free Art Licence, it is enough to specify the following on your artwork:
[some lines to indicate the name of the artwork and to give a possible idea of what it is.]
[some lines to give, if necessary, a description of the modified artwork and the name of the author.]
Copyright © [the date] [name of the author] (if it is the case, specify the names of the previous authors)
Copyleft: this artwork is free, you can redistribute it and/or modify it according to terms of the Free Art Licence.
You will find a specimen of this Licence on the site Copyleft Attitude http://copyleft.tsx.org as well as on other sites.
 

- Why use the Free Art Licence?

1 / to give access to your artwork to the greatest number of people.

2 / to let it be freely distributed.

3 / to allow it to evolve by allowing its transformation by others.

4 / to be able yourself to use the resources of an artwork when it is under Free Art Licence: to copy, distribute it freely or transform it.

5 / This is not all.
Because the use of the Free Art Licence is also a good way to take liberties with the system of goods generated by the dominant economy. The Free Art Licence offers an interesting legal framework to prevent any abusive appropriation. It is not possible any more to seize your work to short-circuit its creation and to make an exclusive profit from it. It is not allowed to take advantage of the collective work being done, not allowed to monopolize the resources of moving creation for the only benefit of some.

The Free Licence Art fights for an economy suitable for art, based on sharing, exchange and the merry work. What counts in art is also and mostly what is not counted.

- When to use the Free Art Licence ?

It is not the goal of the Free Licence Art to eliminate the copyright or the author's rights. Quite the opposite, it is about reformulating its relevance by taking into account the contemporary environment. It is about allowing the right to freedom of movement, to free copy and to free transformation of artworks.  Allowing the right to the freedom of work for art and artists.

1 / A each time you want to use or enable this right, use the Free Art Licence.

2 / A each time you want to create artworks so that they evolve and are freely copied, freely distributable and freely transformable: use the Free Art Licence.

3 / A each time you want to have the possibility of copying, of distributing or of transforming a work:
check that it is under Free Art Licence. If it is not, you are likely to be outlaw.
 

- To which types of artworks can the Free Art Licence be applied?

This licence can be applied to digital artworks as well as to non digital ones. It was born out of the observation of the world of the free software and the Internet, but its applicability is not limited to the digital supports. You can put a painting, a novel, a sculpture, a drawing, a music, a poem, an installation, a video, a film, a cooking recipy, a CD-Rom, a Web site, a performance, in short all creations which can be claimed of a certain art.
 

- This licence has a history: it was born at the meeting " Copyleft Attitude "
http://copyleft.tsx.org which took place at "Accès Local" and "Public" in Paris at the beginning of the year 2000. For the first time, it gathered together software specialists and actors of free software with contemporary artists and people from the art world.

Translation : Antoine Schmitt

An author is not a creator, but a conduit for creative forces. The act of artistic creation crucially involves a letting go of deliberate control. She must train herself to be receptive to creativity, and must create a space in which creativity can manifest; but part of the discipline of authorship is the releasing the reins of power to enable the act of creation to happen. After creativity has manifested, the critical faculties are again called upon to sort, select, polish, and integrate the fruits of creation. In his inimitable style, the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali described this as the 'Paranoiac-Critical Method', comprising what he called the 'Paranoiac' phase of immersion in the chaoticimagery of the subconscious, followed by the Critical phase of meticulous development.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine;  as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

  -- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, Deist

• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is 'uncopyrightable'.
• Warner Chappel Music owns the copyright to the song _Happy Birthday_. They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.

Copyright: your number's up

By FERGUS SHIEL
Thursday 4 October 2001

Listen up, they've got your number. Australian composers Nigel Helyer, aka Dr Sonique, and Jon Drummond have copyrighted 100,000,000,000 telephone tone sequences. You might not know it but every time you dial a number, you play a short melody.

With the aid of a computer, Helyer and Drummond have notated the tones of every imaginable phone number combination and, in turn, claimed the melodies as their own. Next time you make a phone call, therefore, chances are you'll be in breach of international copyright law.

If business can claim ownership over the elemental building blocks of human life, the composers say it's only fitting that artists lay claim to the "DNA" of business and are paid for it.

"We're saying to (big business), 'Okay guys, the boot is on the other foot. If you really believe in copyright, you've got to pay'," Helyer says.

"I think Mr Howard will be high on the list.  Universities. Lots of corporations. We'll go for it."

The composers say their Magnus-Opus is a playful way of lampooning copyright laws that protect big business rather than artists.

You can check your home, work, mobile, fax or modem number against their compositional database by logging on to www.magnus-opus.com.

If your number is matched, the melody will be played, the notes scored and a direction given to complete the licence agreement supplied online as soon as possible.

Helyer and Drummond, who've only just launched the website, say they've had one offer of payment already. "An American guy tired of direct sales people calling him has told us he'd like to purchase the copyright for his number so that he can stop them," Helyer says.

The website explains in greater detail how the composers went about their creation by throwing 16 tone pairs into an algorithmic generation to produce countless melodies.

"The whole telecommunications system is entirely musicalised," Helyer says.

Magnus-Opuswill be installed at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts next year.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/2001/10/04/FFX0PGT0CSC.html

Guys like Mullich raise one of the most fundamental questions of ourmoment: What does it mean to own culture? For media companies, ownership means an exclusive right to squeeze dollars out of materials gripped by the ever-growing tentacles of copyright. But fandom is essentially an open source culture, even as it feeds on corporate media. Fan ownership is really stewardship, a commitment that does not center on individual control but on shared imagination and collective process - one that includes passionate consumers alongside actors, directors, bean counters, and PR flacks. In a sense, fans have always been preparing for today's more participatory and open-ended media universe: It's no accident that Trekkers and Deadheads were among the first to colonize the Internet. But it's equally true that fandom harks back to a time when we sat around the campfire and swapped the old, untrademarked tales of heroes and gods.
- Erik Davis - _The Fellowship Of The Ring_ in _Wired_ 9.10 - October 2001 re: J.R.R. Tolkien

There is no creation ex nihilo. We always work from pre-existing material, both literal substances (wood, a language, the resonance of strings and reeds) and the existing cultural organization of those materials within history, tradition, and contemporary networks of influence. So as we survey the expanding and converging landscape of electronic, virtual, and immersive production, we might ask ourselves: what material is being worked here? Is it simply new organizations of photons, sound waves, and haptic cues? Or does the "holistic" fusion of different media and the construction of more immersive technologies actually suggest another, perhaps more fundamental material?

- Erik Davis - _Experience Design And The Design Of Experience_

The new art will be public art. Since more contributors make a (potentially) better work, network effects will encourage the creators to allow all comers. The essence of encouraging multiple contributions eliminates the purpose of ownership (an artist's control over his or her own work) and derivative works will be the norm.  And how can you copyright an ever-changing work? What allows you to say that the image you copyrighted last year gives you rights over another created today?

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