| Do you think open source code is worse off for the fact that copyright has been removed (via the various licenses, all of which reduce copyright's restrictions)? In my mind, open source code has been an excellent experiment showing that eschewing copyright doesn't mean people are less creative. Certainly, I've seen more creative open source code than I've seen creative proprietary code. Similarly, there are huge swathes of fanfiction out there which are incredible pieces of creative writing which are not charged for, are not created for commercial interest, and while technically copyrighted, the author may not even realize that. There are masses of people producing tiktok videos and spotify music for an audience, with no explicit expectation of copyright protection. People clearly want attribution, not control to the point where they can say that their work cannot be remixed into a new tiktok video (a common thing), or used as fuel for a new creative endeavor. On the other hand, copyright is largely used to stop such remixing, to prevent making creative derivative use of a work. If it were used just for "you must attribute me" (what open source licenses reduce it to), I would have no complaints. |
Open-source code doesn't mean it's not copyrighted, and in fact copyleft licenses are explicitly designed to use this copyright as a coercive/protective mechanism the same as any other copyright.
But as a general statement, everything anyone produces is copyrighted from the moment they produce it. Your "hello world" that you write in a demo project and never open again is copyrighted. Your phone snap of your dog is copyrighted. MIT/BSD licensed code is copyrighted.
A license providing grant of permissions is not the same thing as not having a copyright. Open-source code still has an author, and that owner can also offer other licenses if they want.