Re: A Little Linguistic Playground

[William Monroe <William_Monroe@brown.edu>]

At 10:34 PM 3/29/99 -0500, Mark Rauterkus wrote:

>The civility part is to say, use my words/collections/ideas and such to
>advance the common good, but not to rape the creator. If I put a poem or
>short story into the world as a (Call) work, I'd not like to see that as a
>Disney movie without a check in the mail.
                                                                         
It seems like you want to have it both ways.  I would say that
if you waive your copyright it is gone.  If someone else takes the
idea and runs with it, you have no recourse.  Better to keep your
copyright and be liberal about permission to use the work.  Why
not include a statement to the effect that non-commercial use is
freely permitted.

>To me, copyleft is not copyright, but it is also tainted. Tainting is
>something that is important to understand too. Once it is tainted, it
>always is tainted. So, a work can be put into the "free" license, but it
>can not be included in any "not-free" products. Proprietary is a good word
to make sure everyone understands as well.
                                                                         
I don't like the connotation of the word "tainted".  Your work is
yours, and you have a right to the fruits, because you created it.
This is what the last version of the U.S. copyright legislation
recognized.  It is yours whether you take the step of registering it
or not.  Your rights include that of sharing it if you want to.  But
letting some people use it for free does not preclude expecting a
check from Disney if they make a movie out of it.

--WSM
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William S. Monroe			William_Monroe@Brown.edu
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