[Foundation-l] An argument for strong copyleft

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Monday 07 April 2008 23:47:43 geni wrote:
> On 07/04/2008, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> > On Monday 07 April 2008 15:00:20 Anthony wrote:
> >  > We have two independent works, an article and a photo, and we have a
> >  > newspaper article which is, at least in my opinion, a derivative of
> >  > both works.  Now I agree that it's unrealistic to expect Andrew to
> >  > give away his copyright.  He probably makes a living writing newspaper
> >  > articles.  On the other hand, most Bill's would find it unfair that
> >  > Carrie gets to profit of his work without giving anything in return.
> >  > This is the reason the Noncommercial-only license (which I dislike) is
> >  > so popular.
> >  >
> >  > But there's a simple solution.  Carrie can simply buy a license from
> >  > Bill to use the photo in her newspaper article.
> >  >
> >  > For those Bill's who don't mind Carrie's using their work in this way,
> >  > there's always CC-BY or some other non-copylefted free license.
> >
> > As a free content creator, I have to say that this situation would not be
> >  satisfactory for me.
> >
> >  First, I don't think that my work deserves to influence other, unrelated
> > work; especially as I personally do employ fair use when I can and don't
> > think that I should request more stringent criteria in regard to my work.
>
> Fair use would not and cannot be impacted by any license.

...which has nothing to do with what I said.

> >  Second, I don't want to release my work under CC-BY because I do want
> >  enhancements to my work to be freely reusable.
>
> A newspaper article includeing your work may well be an enhancement.

Actually, it would rather be the other way around (unless the article is about 
my work).

> Okey so you think newspaper articles would be overkill. So what if all
> someone does is add a caption? What if  your work is used as part of a
> Collage? What if it is used as part of a flow chart? Where do you draw
> the line?

I do not draw the line. I am aware that there are use cases that are 
inbetween. Yet most of the cases fall in two clearly separate categories: one 
for which I do want the enhancement to my work to be freely reusable, and one 
for which I am content with my work illustrating an unrelated work.

> >  Third, because I have had experiences with people wanting to use free
> > contents in their works; even GFDL was too much, and so would this
> > requirement be.
>
> The requirements of a hard copyleft CC-BY-SA are rather below those of the
> GFDL.

No, they are in fact rather above it. A GFDL image does not require that you 
release text that includes it under GFDL.