Copyleft

Copyleft is a license granting general permission to copy and reproduce intellectual property—most commonly software, but also writings or other creative content. The term “copyleft” was coined by computer scientist Richard Stallman to reverse the idea of copyright.

Understanding copyleft requires an understanding of the basic aspects of copyright. Copyright reserves exclusive control of copyrighted property to its creator. The creator decides what rights to grant others, and each grant of rights is established under a specific agreement. The creator of a copyrighted work may elect to transfer copyright ownership to another individual, or to a business; in this case, the new copyright owner takes over all rights of copyright control, and decides how to manage those rights.

Copyleft is a general license agreement granted by a copyright owner permitting anyone to freely use copyrighted property, but under specific terms. Common terms of a copyleft license state that a copy-lefted work is freely available to all potential users. Copylefted software allows users to run, modify, copy, and distribute software on the condition that the source code remains open and publicly available. Copyleft usually states that copylefted software must be passed on with a copyleft license requiring successive users to accept and transmit copyleft. The license further requires that modifications or improvements to copylefted software be transmitted under copyleft. Copylefted content is transmitted in much the same way as software, and under similar agreements.

Interpretations of copyleft's scope vary somewhat. Some argue that copyleft involves placing copyrightable material in the public domain. Others argue that copyleft is a specific license granted under copyright law, and they argue that the international statutes governing copyright law are the mechanisms that establish and protect copyleft.

Copyleft can be considered a return to the earliest ideas of intellectual property. Copyleft embodies three traditional principles that governed intellectual property before the industrial revolution, when intellectual property was considered a common good:

• Knowledge builds on prior knowledge. Innovation embodies prior art, and even revolutionary ideas build on the knowledge that successful revolutions overturn.
• No one can truly own knowledge. Knowledge grows with use as a common property that increases through circulation while shrinking with disuse. This view asserts that we can own knowledge only by sharing it; knowledge as private property is a contradiction in terms.
• Knowledge requires the support of tradition. Traditional knowledge grows incrementally, and new knowledge must incorporate earlier knowledge to be acceptable. Traditions of knowledge build on precedent, including law, theology, philosophy, and mathematics. Modern science and scholarship also build on precedent by incorporating or refuting earlier knowledge.

Many cultures respect the traditional view of knowledge, giving rise to different views on intellectual property. Japanese and Chinese scholars, for example, often treat scholarly ideas as a shared heritage that demands respectful incorporation into their writing. While Western property law allowed for the growth of personal property rights for all forms of property, some cultures that accept personal property for physical goods follow traditional law for intellectual property.

The development of capitalism and banking in fifteenth-century Venice led to the first patent law of 1474. In 1710, England enacted the first copyright law. Intellectual property law has grown from those roots to its current state. In recent years, however, several ideas have challenged the idea of applying private property rights to mental creations.

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