KopyLeft - All Rights Reversed.

"Those who want information to be free as a matter of principle should create some information and make it free." - Nicholas Petreley

All quotes and images from other sources are copyright their respective owners, but any content original to this document is open source, unless specifically stated otherwise. Do with it what you like, but please attribute properly, even if you do not agree with the KopyLeft principle.

KopyLeft ensures the widest dissemination of information. We disagree with the way that copyright and patent law in the United States and around the world is unceasingly modified and broadened due to lobbying by corporations such as Disney and organizations such as the MPAA. It is ludicrous and inexcusable to equate copyright infringement with terrorism, as MPAA president Jack Valenti did, and we want no part of that mindset.

Copyright laws were originally created to ensure that creators benefited from their works, but current laws favor publishers and corporations, not the individual artist.

Public domain allows works to become integral parts of other works – Alice in Wonderland is a good example. It has been borrowed from by thousands of artists for thousands of reasons, and because of this, the story has lived on and grown with us to the point of becoming archetypical. This is not possible with works that are still under copyright for obvious reasons.

In the information age, our cultural heritage has gone global. Scheherazade’s work is almost as much a part of our cultural heritage as Shakespeare and Carroll. Innovations and enhancements on all of their works enrich the scope and power of the original to inform our global culture and provide a familiar framework for the innovator to work within.

For Eris’ sake, even weather data is under strict copyright – the National Weather Service is limited on what weather data it is allowed to provide free on its website, since the private sector owns pieces of the information.

I find it especially disappointing that the company that has benefited most from information in the public domain is leading the fight to keep their versions of those public domain works under strict copyright. Creators should certainly profit from their works, but when the creator and their spouse are dead, what right does a corporation have to the intellectual property, especially for such an extended amount of time? Obviously, the answer to this is that they have the right of political influence and graft in the form of campaign contributions.

Since we can do nothing about these misguided souls, we have KopyLefted our material. It isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s the best we can do. What do you think of that, Petreley?