Alternatives to Copyright

Copyleft

Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works such as computer software, documents, and art. 

Under Copyleft, 

an author may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement.

Copyleft licenses (for software) require that information necessary for reproducing and modifying the work must be made available to recipients of the executable. The source code files will usually contain a copy of the license terms and acknowledge the author(s).

Copyleft type licenses are a novel use of existing copyright law to ensure a work remains freely available.

Creative Commons

Founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, creative commons is a non-profit organisation that provides a legal framework to allow people to: 

Share

Remix

Reuse

Creative Commons licences provide a simple , standardised alternative to the “All rights reserved” Paradigm of traditional copyright.

Unlike the “All Rights Reserved” licence, there are different layers or levels of licence that the owner can apply

- ATTRIBUTION BY CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. 

This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

- ATTRIBUTION ShareAlike CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. 

This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.  Used By Wikipedia

- ATTRIBUTION - NoDerivs CC BY-ND

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

- ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial CC BY-NC

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

- ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial- ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

- ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial- NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.