| >> I mean I didn't manually Manually or automatically issuing is insignificant. Your work was automatically copyrighted when you wrote it, if you did nothing else - such as agreeing to exchange those rights for a salary from an employer, or declaring the software as licenced under specific terms, or performing the necessary actions in your jurisdiction to enter the works into the public domain, if you did none of these, then it’s yours to claim as an asset if you want. >> nothing is removed and value is added No asset was removed - ownership of the copyright of the software still remains unchanged when people copied your open source software. However, no new asset was created. They derived value from your software hopefully but they didn’t gain a new asset. What if you licenced it under a really permissive licence like apache? It’s still the same story. someone else can create their own asset by changing your apache licenced software and distributing it as theirs. They’re in breach of that particular licence if they try to redistribute completely unchanged work under a different licence. >> a painting has more value than the paint and canvas You’re conflating valuation with accounting. The value of an asset is a different and often subjective concern, from the accounting of ownership of it. A painting has more value than it’s raw materials (hopefully!), but that tells us nothing about how to account for ownership of the asset. If i have a case of beers that i bought for $50 and i take it to the beach and sell it for $100 to a group of thirsty friends, the valuation changed but the chain of custody of the asset was zero sum all through. |