| That's one of those statements that seems obviously true, but I think it probably a lot more complicated in real life. Most people don't write things that they want covered by copyright (although it might be anyway). For example, this message is would be copyrighted by me in most countries. I have absolutely no problem with you making a copy of it (or any other message I've written on HN). To be fair, I completely forget if there is a license clause in the HN agreement that I clicked on when I got my account, but if there isn't I hereby release every message I have ever written on HN under CC0. I don't feel in any way diminished by my action ;-) Even with software, the vast majority of things I write, I assign copyright to the people who pay me. In fact, copyright is not important to the way I work. I don't write it and then hope someone will pay me after the fact. I have a contract which says that they will pay me for my effort of writing software. Heck, as the old Dilbert cartoon showed, I could twiddle my thumbs all day and I would still get paid (for a while). Even for the programming I do outside of work, while I usually choose the GPL, if there was not copyright I wouldn't need to worry about licenses and I would still write the code. It would affect me slightly, but I wouldn't be marching down the street trying to reinstate copyright because people were "stealing" my code. I have had old posts on usenet (yes, I'm that old) stuck on websites even with the wrong attribution (people taking "credit" for my crappy writing... suckers). There is no way I am worried enough to send a takedown request. I don't think I'm unusual in this respect. In fact, I think the vast majority of people operate the same way. The people who do care are the people who create something in advance (usually without getting paid) and who hope to monetize it later. I have no problem imagining that most of them would cry foul when their work is copied. Every body else (i.e. most of the people in the world)? Not so much. |