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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.92 -->
+<!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html -->
+<title>Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/nonsoftware-copyleft.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information</h2>
+
+<p>by <a href="http://dsl.org/"><strong>Michael Stutz</strong></a></p>
+
+<h3 id="what">First, what is Copyleft?</h3>
+
+<p>
+The entry for
+&ldquo;<a href="/copyleft/copyleft.html">copyleft</a>&rdquo; in the
+definitive hacker lexicon, the
+<a href="http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/c/copyleft.html">Jargon
+File</a>, reads:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ copyleft: /kop'ee-left/ [play on &lsquo;copyright&rsquo;] n. 1. The
+ copyright notice (&lsquo;General Public License&rsquo;) carried by
+ GNU EMACS and other Free Software Foundation software, granting
+ reuse and reproduction rights to all comers (but see also General
+ Public Virus). 2. By extension, any copyright notice intended to
+ achieve similar aims.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The idea of <a href="/copyleft/copyleft.html">copyleft</a>
+originated with &uuml;ber-hacker <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">
+Richard Stallman</a> in 1983 when he started
+the <a href="/gnu/gnu-history.html">GNU Project</a>. In brief, his
+goal was &ldquo;to develop a complete free Unix-like operating
+system.&rdquo; As part of that goal, he invented and wrote
+the <a href="/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License</a>, a
+legal construct that included a copyright notice but added to it (or,
+technically, removed certain restrictions), so its terms allowed for
+the freedoms of reuse, modification and reproduction of a work or its
+derivatives to be kept for all.</p>
+
+<p>
+Normal <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190805143144/http://www.angelfire.com/planet/carroll/index2.html">
+copyright</a> asserts ownership and identification of the author, as
+well as prevents the use of the author's name as author of a distorted
+version of the work; it also prevents intentional distortion of the
+work by others and prevents destruction of the work. But it also
+carries other restrictions &mdash; such as restricting the
+reproduction or modification of a work.</p>
+
+<p>
+Copyleft contains the normal copyright statement, asserting ownership
+and identification of the author. However, it then <em>gives away</em>
+some of the other rights implicit in the normal copyright: it says
+that not only are you free to redistribute this work, but you are also
+free to change the work. However, you cannot claim to have written the
+original work, nor can you claim that these changes were created by
+someone else. Finally, all derivative works must also be placed under
+these terms.</p>
+
+<h3 id="why">Why is Copyleft important, or even necessary?</h3>
+
+<p>
+Certain restrictions of copyright &mdash; such as distribution and
+modification &mdash; are not very useful to &ldquo;cyberia,&rdquo; the
+&ldquo;free, apolitical, democratic community&rdquo; that constitutes
+the internetworked digital world.</p>
+
+<p>
+With computers, perfect copies of a digital work can easily be made
+&mdash; and even modified, or further distributed &mdash; by others,
+with no loss of the original work. As individuals interact in cyberia,
+sharing information &mdash; then reacting and building upon it &mdash;
+is not only natural, but this is the <em>only</em> way for individual
+beings to thrive in a community. In essence, the idea of copyleft is
+basic to the natural propagation of digital information among humans
+in a society. This is why the regular notion of copyright does not
+make sense in the context of cyberia.</p>
+
+<p>
+Simple &lsquo;public domain&rsquo; publication will not work, because
+some will try to abuse this for profit by depriving others of freedom;
+as long as we live in a world with a legal system where legal
+abstractions such as copyright are necessary, as responsible artists
+or scientists we will need the formal legal abstractions of copyleft
+that ensure our freedom and the freedom of others.</p>
+
+<p>
+Much literature has been written on this subject by Stallman, and the
+details can be found in the
+excellent <a href="/philosophy/philosophy.html">texts</a> published
+by the Free Software Foundation.</p>
+
+<h3 id="gpl">So why isn't the FSF's GNU GPL good enough?</h3>
+
+<p>
+It <em>is</em> good enough! The GNU GPL is not only a document of
+significant historical and literary value, but it is in wide use today
+for countless software programs &mdash; those as formal part of the
+GNU Project and otherwise. The GNU GPL originated for the specific
+goal of sharing software among computer programmers. However, looking
+closely at the GPL, it appears that the same License can be easily
+applied to non-software information.</p>
+
+<p>Alternately, a document can be copylefted under different, or much
+simpler terms; whether or not the GNU GPL is the specific means to the
+end is not the issue, although the GNU GPL certainly provides the most
+explicit (and canonical) definition of copyleft.</p>
+
+<h3 id="how">Ok, so how do I copyleft my non-software work?</h3>
+
+<p>
+It's simple. While a particular situation may require or inspire its
+own specific License, possibly similar to the GNU GPL, all that a
+copyleft notice must really do is fulfill the points as defined above
+in &ldquo;<a href="#what">First, what is Copyleft?</a>&rdquo;. Using
+the GNU GPL to copyleft your work is easy.</p>
+
+<p>
+The GNU GPL states that it &ldquo;applies to any program or other work
+which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may
+be distributed under the terms of this General Public License,&rdquo;
+so this &ldquo;Program,&rdquo; then, may not necessarily be a computer
+software program &mdash; any work of any nature that can be
+copyrighted can be copylefted with the GNU GPL.</p>
+
+<p>
+The GNU GPL references the &ldquo;source code&rdquo; of a work; this
+&ldquo;source code&rdquo; will mean different things for different
+kinds of information, but the definition of &ldquo;source code&rdquo;
+&mdash; provided in the GNU GPL &mdash; holds true in any case:
+&ldquo;The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work
+for making modifications to it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>
+The notices attached to the work can not always be attached &ldquo;to
+the start of each source file,&rdquo; as recommended by the GNU
+GPL. In this case, the directory that the files reside should contain
+a notice, as should any accompanying documentation or literature.</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, for non-software works the &ldquo;copyright&rdquo; line
+included at the start of the &ldquo;source code&rdquo; of the work is
+modified in language slightly:</p>
+
+<pre>
+ &lt;one line to give the work's name and a brief idea of what it does.&gt;
+ Copyright (C) yyyy &lt;name of author&gt;
+
+ This information is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+ under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+ (at your option) any later version.
+
+ This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+ GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+ You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software
+ Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
+</pre>
+
+<h3 id="where">Where do I go from here?</h3>
+
+<p>Here are sources for further information on copyleft, especially as
+it is applied to non-software information:</p>
+
+<p>The <a href="/home.html">rest of this web site</a> is the home of
+the GNU Project and is the canonical source for copyleft and
+free software<a href="#f1">(1)</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="http://www.ram.org/">Ram Samudrala</a> wrote
+the <a href="http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html">Free
+Music Philosophy</a> and creates copylefted music as the
+band Twisted Helices.</p>
+
+<p>Some of my own non-software copylefted works include texts
+(literature, reviews, <a href="http://dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_toc.html">technical</a>)
+and music.</p>
+
+<h3 id="fn">Footnote</h3>
+
+<ol>
+<li id="f1">Before 2020, &ldquo;free software&rdquo; was confusingly
+referred to as &ldquo;freely-redistributable&rdquo;.</li>
+</ol>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+ files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+ be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this
+ without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+ document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+ document was modified, or published.
+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+ Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+ years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+ Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 1997, 2020 Michael Stutz</p>
+
+<p>
+Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
+permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
+</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2020/08/08 18:01:06 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
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+</body>
+</html>