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by TheDong
1477 days ago
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Public domain / UNLICENSE style licenses are less popular, but still have the same qualities I mentioned of people feeling ownership, even though there is zero copyright in that specific case and their is no legal codification of ownership. I understand that MIT etc are copyright licenses, but they remove the majority of copyright's requirements. They only require attribution, and are a statement that the other parts of copyright, the restrictions on distribution and modification, explicitly do not apply. They remove the part of copyright that people typically think of when someone says copyright. |
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The fact remains, copyright is very much relevant to the open source community today. It's absurd to say otherwise, given the amount of discussion the topic generates. On that basis I categorically reject your statement that "free software / open source licenses have effectively made copyright disappear for open source code."
> They remove the part of copyright that people typically think of when someone says copyright.
"People" don't know the first thing about copyright, because (besides the obvious lack of technical knowledge) it's invisible to them when it's working in their favor and highly visible when it isn't.
What does copyright mean to creators, to whom it is granted? Does it mean ownership, in some vague, ill-defined sense? Guaranteed attribution wherever their work ends up? The right to ensure their work is used only for applications they consider ethical? A guarantee that nobody will be able to make money off it? A guarantee that nobody will be able to make money off it but them? A guarantee that movie studio X won't hire a hack writer-director for a cash-in sequel that ruins the original's reputation? The answer is that it means all these things, and more, to different creators.
As a creator of copyrighted works (of both FOSS and fiction, as it happens), copyright means something in particular to me. It means something else to other creators. I wouldn't speak for them, and I'm kind of astonished by how many people with (apparently) little or no skin in the game are willing to do so.