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Outline
 Synopsis
 Future Setting
Historical Setting
 Pre-US
 US Constitution
 Copyrights
 Shareware
 Copyleft
 Public Domain
 Problems Awaiting Solution
An Attempt to Walk the Tightrope
 Provisions of RightCopy

Rightcopy for this Document
 

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Synopsis

This article proposes a new form of intellectual property rights protection that attempts to strike a balance between public domain and copyright that encourages contribution and dissemination.

 
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Future Setting

This proposal is addressed to the current needs of the Free Nation Foundation and its authors rather than to the eventual free nation we hope will result. However, this type of need may also exist in a free nation, so this need should be addressed in our plans for intellectual property protection.

 
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If we are going to propose a new form of protection, perhaps we should review the forms currently available.

 
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Pre-US

By the fact that founding fathers were at pains to include copyright in the Constitution, we can assume they were unhappy with intellectual property rights protection provided by English Common Law. There were authors and publishing houses, so English statute law provided some effective protection.

 
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US Constitution

The Constitution explicitly authorizes the Federal Government to assign copyrights.

 
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Copyrights

A system for registering and defending copyrights has been in place for two hundred years. It has been regularly updated and is a recognized legal specialty with substantial case histories, so it is readily available and well established.

Major Provisions:

• The act of original authorship creates an immediate copyright.
• Lasts for 50 years and can be extended.
• Do not need to register unless you are bringing suit.
• Cases have been won defending a work—protection is effective.
• Unless specifically authorized, others are prohibited from copying more than a short passage.
• Unless specifically authorized, others are prohibited from producing an altered version or derived work.

Shareware

Shareware is not really a different form of intellectual property protection since it relies on copyright. It is a different method of distribution and payment. It is included here so programmers will not think it has been left out.

 
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Copyleft

In trying to solve some of the problems he saw with the copyright system, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation devised what he called the copyleft. It is primarily designed to allow users to use software for free and to make changes to it. Even if a programmer makes massive changes, he is not allowed to copyright the result, but must pass along the copyleft to subsequent users. Stallman did this because he was concerned that if he put a program in the public domain, a company might make a change to it and then copyright the result. Subsequent users would be charged for using the program he gave for free. Copyleft insures that all derivatives of a free program would remain free. Stallman was more concerned that the user be allowed to modify the program than the program be cost free (he allows a distribution fee). Some programmers and companies have feared they will "contaminate" all of their work with the copyleft if they pass on one program with copyleft. Stallman insists this is not so, the copyleft would only apply to the one program and its derivatives. Recently, Netscape decided to release the program code for Navigator. While they used the copyleft as a model, they were concerned enough about some of these issues to devise a different version.
 

Major Provisions:

• Based on copyright.
• Creator licenses others to use, copy, and alter.
• Requires those others to pass along copyleft license.

Public Domain

When an author wishes to allow others to use freely his work, he may declare it to be in the public domain. In programs, this is often called freeware. If a copyright expires without being extended, the work becomes public domain.

Major Provisions:

• Author may declare.
• Legal remedies would be difficult.
• Others may use, copy, and alter as they wish.

Problems Awaiting Solution

While there are a variety of forms of intellectual property protection available, none give us an ideal mix of features:

• Encourage others to develop and improve our works.
• Allow our works to be widely copied.
• Provide a method for a publisher to be able to establish copyright.
• Allow potential consumers to compare the different versions.
• Maintain a trail of authorship.
• Make it easy for scholars to trace the development of an idea.
• Discourage others from stealing our ideas without attribution.
• Discourage others from modifying our ideas without changing attribution.
• Allow others to move our ideas to different media.
• Help companies and lawyers to feel more at ease allowing use.

To facilitate the most rapid development and spread of our ideas, we need a form of intellectual property protection adopted to our needs. RightCopy is an attempt to walk the tightrope of balancing all these contradictory requirements.

To allow people who are interested in our ideas to circulate them to their friends, we need to allow free copying.

To encourage the most rapid development of our ideas we need to allow others to make alterations to our works.

To encourage proliferation of our ideas, we need to allow people to copy our works freely but provide a mechanism where people can create a copyright version, because many publishers will not publish a document if they cannot get a copyright on it.

To maintain a trail of authorship, we need to require the document to refer back to the previous version and to require a version with substantial changes to include the name of the author making changes.

 
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The Provisions of RightCopy

• The document will be copyrighted.
• The document will include a license allowing free use, copying, and alteration.
• The license will require an altered version to include a reference to the original version and the author of the changes.
• The license will allow the author of an altered version to copyright the result but require a reference to the original and that the original author retains their RightCopy in the original. D

RightCopy for this Document

(Normally, the Rightcopy would be placed at the beginning of a document)

 This document is copyright 1998 by the Free Nation Foundation and Bobby Yates Emory.

 Anyone is licensed to copy, alter, delete from, and add to this document in any form or medium; provided they include this notice in a way as easy to read as the ordinary text of the document and thereby pass along these rights to others.  If the alteration is more than trivial and not just esthetic, they must include directions for obtaining an unaltered copy and the name of the author(s) making the changes.  An unaltered copy may be obtained at website FREENATION.ORG.

 Anyone is licensed to alter this work and to copyright the result provided they include the following notice in a way as easy to read as the ordinary text of the document 'This work is derived from "A New Form of Intellectual Property Protection" which may be obtained in unaltered form from the website FREENATION.ORG. This copyright supersedes for this document only the copyright and RightCopy of "A New Form of Intellectual Property Protection" held by the Free Nation Foundation and others.  This copyright does not invalidate the copyright and RightCopy in the original document "A New Form of Intellectual Property Protection" held by the Free Nation Foundation and others or their rights to produce derived works.  This RightCopy was inspired by but does not affect the GPL of the GNU project of the FSF.
 

Bobby Yates Emory of Raleigh, North Carolina, has retired from a career as a programmer and systems analyst at IBM. A longtime libertarian activist, he has run for offices from County Commissioner to U.S. Senator, and held political party offices from Precinct Chairman to Regional Representative to the National Committee.

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