copyright.html


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
pre { line-height: 125%; }
td.linenos .normal { co<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="UTF-8" />
	<title>Copyright: It's okay</title>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="./style.css" />
	<link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" sizes="any" />
	<!--link rel="icon" href="./icon.svg" type="image/svg+xml" / -->
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
	<meta name="theme-color" content="#241504" />
	<meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark">

</head>
<body>
<header>
	<h1>Copyright: It's okay</h1>
</header>

<article>
	<p>
	Copyright law isn't as broken as some think.
	</p>

	<p>
	Modern copyright law allows for things like nonfree software that don't respect privacy and other freedoms.  But as long as it conforms to the license agreement that users thereof agree to, it's the users' responsibility to read the license agreement carefully and to agree to or decline it based on what they've read.  We Free Software developers <em><strong>grant</strong> the users the four freedoms</em>, others can choose to do otherwise.
	</p>

	<p>
	Information unlike physical items can be copied with minimal cost, especially in the case of digital information, and thus the traditional private property argument of "this is theft and the author loses stuff" doesn't really apply.  However, information/data that an author creates shall be under the control of the author, it's ultimately what they create and is their private information.  The authors, not anyone else, should control how their information goes.  (Transferring this control to another entity is ultimately using their control to share or give away the same control, so that's no different.)
	</p>

	<p>
	There are some jurisdictions that don't allow publishing works into the public domain.  I believe that this needs improvement, as I don't see a reason to force an author to control the distribution of their work when the author themselves don't want to.  For instance, this Website is, when possible, in the public domain, but in jurisdictions like Germany where that's not possible, an alternative permissive license is used.
	</p>
</article>

<footer>
	<ul role="list">
		<li><a href="./">Home</a></li>
		<li>Runxi Yu</li>
		<li><a rel="license" href="./pubdom.html">Public Domain</a></li>
	</ul>
</footer>
</body>
</html>