"If it's not KopyLeft, it's not Discordian"

[Lies]

Though i personally agree wholeheartedly that Everything Discordian Should Be Kopyleft, I think it would be bad rule for this (or any) community to adopt.

This.
But of course, there are no rules to discordianism.

Hence, I think it comes down to, do as thou wilt will be the whole of the law, just remember, no one likes an arsehole.

[AFK]

Considering that Discordians regect the consept of right and wrong, can it be wrong to make money out of people using Discordian ideas?

So to copyright is not 'un-discordian'?

If it is wrong then it is imperative we kill Steve Jackson immediately.  If it isn't wrong, well, it's still a good plan. 

[LMNO]

The minute I can viably make enough money to live off this shit, I'm going to, even if it means ©.



Yeah, I said it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

For me personally, it depends on the material. A poem, rant, story etc... that's all (K). If however, I write an 800 page Novel that is worth publishing... it will probably be (C) or Creative Commons etc. but not (K) (since K isn't actually anything other than a Discordian joke).

[Reginald Ret]

The minute I can viably make enough money to live off this shit, I'm going to, even if it means ©.



Yeah, I said it.

Pfff the minute i can make any amount of money of this shit, I'm going to. though i'm not getting out of my bed for less than 5 bucks an hour.

[Requia ☣]

Kopyleft, the traditional discordian kind where you give no other conditions, ensures that if it goes to court it will cause the maximum possible headache for the lawyers.

Kopyleft is also in line with nondogmatism, since it makes reinterpretations easy to make.

Though with any copyleft question, the big thing you should ask yourself is what are you giving up.  If you're going to give it away free, a minimum no derivs non commercial license doesn't hurt you, and potentially helps someone else.  If you don't care if people make derivatives or not, then allow those too.  Basically, I'm saying, with anything really, be as free with it as you feel you can.  No point in locking away things you don't actually need to be locked up.

Tl; DR version: go with kopyleft unless you have a good reason not to.

[Phineas T. Poxwattle]

well said

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Also, I think that Copyright law still applies with Kopyleft, since Kopyleft is not a legal anything. If the license something is released under is null and void, default copyright laws come into play... at least that was the understanding back when the GPL was being tested in court.

[Requia ☣]

The GPL has never been in court outside of Germany as far as I know.

Copyleft, without the K, has a fairly general meaning, and law in the US is mostly about pissing contests over whats been done, or what something meant in the past. (see Frigaliment Importing Co., Ltd. v. BNS International Sales Corp)  Though having the copyleft of a widely distributed discordian work suddenly turn into standard copyright would be funny as hell imho.

[Iason Ouabache]

My understanding is that Kopyleft is the exact same thing as Share-alike: "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license."

[Phineas T. Poxwattle]

It is a bit murky. I've always interpreted "all rights reversed" as "public domain", it's just that those spags Mal and Omar didn't have that word yet. But yeah, it's not quite so clear.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, according to the spags in the legal dept. There is no legal definition for "Kopyleft" therefore it would be considered as part of the art/piece/creative work and not a license re. that creative work. However, in US Copyright, for example, the content of The Black Iron Prison pamphlet is Copyright of the authors.

KC: YEah, I should have reworded it to "threatened with court" not tested in court. Sorry

[Triple Zero]

I've always assumed that Kopyleft basically means "public domain". Although looking it up on wikipedia, it seems that legally, it doesn't mean anything, and therefore default copyright law would apply.

Anyway, assuming it means public domain, I agree with some of the posters that it's a bad idea to consider it dogma.

On the other hand, the more discordian material is free to use, the better, IMO.

Personally, if I were to pick a license for my discordian works, i'd rather go for the Creative Commons Non-Commercial / Share Alike / Attribution license.

Mostly for the reason that if I were to publish something public domain, and someone uses it and makes a lot of money out of it, I'd feel kind of sour about that. But if someone sees my work, thinks of something to make a lot of money out of it, the CC license doesn't prevent them from contacting me, so we can work out a specific non-transferrable commercial license (not even necessarily for a fee).

[Requia ☣]

It is a bit murky. I've always interpreted "all rights reversed" as "public domain", it's just that those spags Mal and Omar didn't have that word yet. But yeah, it's not quite so clear.

The kopyleft statement of the PD is moot.  At the time, if you didn't actually say copyrighted you had no copyright, and copylefts legal status is based on being able to claim copyright if somebody violates the terms of copyleft.

And they very much had the term public domain, thats an old proper legal definition.  Kopyleft was unique.  The very concept of copyleft may be the biggest impact Hill and Thornley had on our society.  One day I will track down Stallman, give him a free beer, and try to get the truth out of him if he had any contact with discordians or the literature before '83, or if it really did spring fully formed out of his head.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It is a bit murky. I've always interpreted "all rights reversed" as "public domain", it's just that those spags Mal and Omar didn't have that word yet. But yeah, it's not quite so clear.

The kopyleft statement of the PD is moot.  At the time, if you didn't actually say copyrighted you had no copyright, and copylefts legal status is based on being able to claim copyright if somebody violates the terms of copyleft.

And they very much had the term public domain, thats an old proper legal definition.  Kopyleft was unique.  The very concept of copyleft may be the biggest impact Hill and Thornley had on our society.  One day I will track down Stallman, give him a free beer, and try to get the truth out of him if he had any contact with discordians or the literature before '83, or if it really did spring fully formed out of his head.

Already did that. Stallman said he heard about Kopyleft while he was first working on the GPL because one of his friends thought it was equally absurd. I think Richard was lying, because he said it was a freind.