Thesis - The Copyleft/Free Culture Movement does not involve a return to a premodern/pre-copyright creative environment because they do not mean the outright absence of copyright; rather they both involve some surrendering of some but not all copyright laws. A return to pre-modern/pre-copyright laws would mean the absence of copyright altogether.
- Some of the tales in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are uncannily similar, almost exact replicates in some instances, to their source materials. Chaucer uses these sources to compile the Canterbury Tales, which is essentially a satire of English society of his day. According to modern copyright law, this would definitely be deemed illegal; however, because it was published pre-copyright, it is now widely accepted. This would not fall under Copyleft or Free Culture and so Copyleft/Free Culture cannot be considered the opposite of copyright.
- In Copyleft, the work is not in the public domain, that is it is not "free-for-all". It comes with terms and conditions in that it comes with the agreement that just as someone is modifying someone else's work, this "new" work made will come with the same agreement, that it is allowed to be modified. It is the middle ground between having zero ownership and having sole ownership. Copyright involves having sole owenrship of your own expression of what you have modified in someone else's work.
I definitely hear where you're coming from with the source code issue. I would think that, since it's a program that you buy, there's more to it than just copyright law, but you'll probably have to look it up to get all of the details. You might want to consider not delving into the source code issue and using other examples just for simplicity. On another note, you seem to have a pretty good grasp over the copyleft sumbject material so this is a fairly good start overall.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chris. The source code issue could add a lot of unneeded complexity and length to your essay. I would focus on what you have and the copyleft subject. You have a really good grasp on the idea and seem to well on your way to getting your essay written. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI think your example, as stated above, brings a risk of making your essay inaccessible. Though I do believe that it could instead be a very powerful argument if you are careful with it. Integrating it into the copyleft ideas would be the obvious way to do this, but I think it would be even better if you brought up analogue examples to help relate to the source code issue.
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