On 8/21/07, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/21/07, David Blomstrom webmaster@geobop.org wrote:
it's possible that people could begin copying any text I wrote, claiming it is no longer protected by copyright.
I doubt that is the case, although I'm not sure. From what I understand, you have two options in such a case: a) You follow the terms of the license and license your work according to the copyleft license or b) You don't follow the terms of the license and commit copyright infringement. In case b) people can sue you and demand huge amounts of money from you, but that does not immediately mean that your work is no longer protected by copyright.
Is this correct? Or am I just talking nonsense?
Thats right. An abuse of copyleft license does not free your other works. Committing copyright infringement will open you to various forms of liability for your actions. Although the most common first step with copyright violations is just being ordered to stop infringing.
You may find, however, that you may have a difficult time enforcing the copyright on your infringing work until that infringement is resolved. Go go gadget unclean hands.
It may well be that the easiest and most face saving way to resolve an infringement is to freely license your work, but you shouldn't ever be required to do so.
As authors of copylefted content we should all be careful to be reasonably gentle with our enforcement. "We don't want money, We don't want publicity. We want compliance." We can't earn goodwill by asking for blood, and we depend on the goodwill of the public more than most.