On 8/15/06, Platonides Platonides@gmail.com wrote:
GFDL is in fact really strong. If a GFDL image was used to advertise Coke, then the whole advertisement could be claimed to be under GFDL
This is, in fact, a common misunderstanding with copyleft licenses. If coke managed to make a derived work from a strongly copyleft image their choices are to copyleft their derived work, to distribute the work in violation of copyright law, or to not distribute it at all.
Nothing about a copyleft license can cause an accidental loss of the protect privileges of another copyright holder.
[snip]
Plus, not allowing fair use, thus saying "the only way to have this on wikipedia" is also a good wayy of receiving images that would be otherwise forced to the fair use.
This is quite true.
Because of automatic copyright protection the vast majority of copyrighted works are materials which no one has any need or desire to protect through copyright. Friction, both in the form of the acceptance policies of popular forums (like wikipedia) and in the requirements for derived works in copyleft licenses, is useful to encourage people to release otherwise exclusive rights for their works which they do not actually want or need.