Copyleft
Copyleft is a concept which uses the principles of copyright to ensure that a work can be used and distributed free. It was developed mainly for software and is widely attributed to the Free Software Foundation. It is widely used in software products but has limited use and applicability to written works in terms of literature, articles or poetry, for example.
The name is a play on words, intended to indicate the opposite nature of the copyleft concept to the traditional protections afforded by normal copyright, i.e. the sole right of the owner or producer to exploit, develop and distribute the work. Copyleft uses the principle of copyright, with additional terms and stipulations, that demand derivative works, developed products or works containing the original work, be distributed free.
For many writers, copyleft has limited appeal as it can be difficult to record or enforce the copyright stipulations. In many cases, the terms would need to be included as part of the written work itself. This could be further complicated by individual copyright laws in many countries. In the UK, for example, copyright applies to any written work automatically when it is created without the need to register the work. There is therefore no 'licence agreement' for written works where the copyleft terms could be stipulated. In this respect, copyleft is much more suited to software code and products.
A written work could be marked as copyleft, using the copyleft symbol, but this may require the principles of copyleft to be explained to the reader, although the principle of copyright is not sufficiently understood by many people today either.
The content on Wikipedia pages is subject to a form of copyleft using the GNU Free Documentation Licence. This means that it is legal to reproduce the content of Wikipedia pages provided the terms stated on Wikipedia are adhered to. While this may seem like a boon for website owners looking for content, it should be treated with a note of caution. Wikipedia is a continually developing and expanding website with content being added by any user. As a result, there is no guarantee that the content on a Wikipedia page does not already infringe copyright from another source as copying and pasting of content by visitors who may ignore, or not be aware of, copyright is widespread. Wikipedia devotes huge amounts of time to trying to eradicate this type of content, but you should bear this in mind before using the copyleft status of the content for your own uses.
For more information, take a look at the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation Licence and its related links.
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