What is Copyleft?
Copyleft is an idea that has recently been borrowed by musicians from software programmers such as Richard Stallman of the GNU free software project. The idea that music should be the exclusive intellectual property of an individual or corporation is a recent Western invention; one that pits artists against consumers, resulting in fights such as the battle the RIAA is currently waging on all who would share their music via P2P networks. At one point in Western history, and even still in many parts of the world, music belonged to the community in which it was created.
This music is meant to be shared freely, in the spirit of a global community, by any means available. The phrase “Some rights reserved” as opposed to “All rights reserved” is used to indicate that the music may be distributed, performed and copied freely, but only for noncommercial uses. This is meant to prevent others from profiting from the songs, or derivatives of the songs claimed as intellectual property. The idea of witholding certain rights comes from Creative Commons, one organization that helps artists, including musicians, protect the intent of sharing their work through customized licenses.
More information on the origins of Copyleft in the GNU project, as well as a copy of the standard General Public License (GPL) can be found at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html.
Brent Durksen
June 4, 2004
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
