---
layout: post
status: publish
published: true
title: The Problems of Copyleft, Twitter and Tweets

wordpress_id: 218
wordpress_url: http://www.martineve.com/?p=218
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categories:
- Technology
- Open Access
tags:
- Open Access
- Copyleft
- twitter
- intellectual property
comments:
- id: 180
  author: Tweets that mention The Problems of Copyleft, Twitter and Tweets | Martin
    Paul Eve -- Topsy.com
  author_email: ''
  author_url: http://topsy.com/www.martineve.com/2010/11/04/the-problems-of-copyleft-twitter-and-tweets/?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2
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  content: ! '[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John D, Martin Eve. Martin
    Eve said: New blog post: The Problems of Copyleft, Twitter and Tweets http://www.martineve.com/?p=218
    [...]'
- id: 1020
  author: Crosbie Fitch
  author_email: crosbie@digitalproductions.co.uk
  author_url: http://digitalproductions.co.uk
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  content: ! "Copyleft doesn't depend on copyright. It uses copyright against itself
    - a license that liberates the licensee on condition they liberate all others
    on the same condition. If copyright were abolished there would be no reason to
    re-enact it in order that copyleft could restore to people their natural right
    to copy.\r\n\r\nTweets are copyrightable if they constitute original works.\r\n\r\nTweets
    can infringe copyright if they illicitly repeat copyrighted works, e.g. if the
    poem \"Adam had 'em\" was covered by copyright, then a tweet infringes. Twitter
    cannot magically undo a 3rd party copyright through its terms and conditions of
    use."
- id: 1024
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: ''
  date: !binary |-
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  content: ! "\"Copyleft doesn’t depend on copyright. It uses copyright against itself\"
    -- can you see the contradiction there?\r\n\r\n\"If copyright were abolished there
    would be no reason to re-enact it in order that copyleft could restore to people
    their natural right to copy.\"\r\n\r\nOk, so assume that there's no copyright.
    I, therefore, cannot force people to share work in the same fashion (strong copyleft).
    As I would not \"own\" the original intellectual property, I could not stop someone
    taking my work and using it a proprietary manner. Because copyright does exist,
    I can specify that they can only use my work if they are willing to distribute
    it in the same manner.\r\n\r\nI would, personally, be perfectly happy to see copyright
    thoroughly reviewed (ideally abolished), but only if mechanisms are put in place
    to ensure that copyleft remains enforceable. See: http://questioncopyright.org/what_we_lose_when_we_embrace_copyright#copyleft
    for a consideration of this. (Which also will point out that copyleft depends
    on copyright for enforcement).\r\n\r\n\"Tweets are copyrightable if they constitute
    original works.\"\r\n\r\nYes - as I stated in the post, the vast majority of tweets
    are not copyrightable, but a minority are: \r\n\r\n\"In short, <em>if</em> a tweet
    is expressing something not covered by copyright law (facts, titles, slogans,
    short phrases, non-original material), the fact that you wrote it does not mean
    that you own exclusive rights to it.\""
- id: 1026
  author: Crosbie Fitch
  author_email: crosbie@digitalproductions.co.uk
  author_url: http://digitalproductions.co.uk
  date: !binary |-
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  content: ! "If copyleft is the restoration of those freedoms suspended by copyright,
    then the restoration of those freedoms does not depend upon copyright, since without
    copyright those freedoms are not suspended. A copyleft license is a means of restoring
    the freedoms suspended by copyright.\r\n\r\nAnyone who petitions for the retention
    of copyright in order that copyleft licenses can restore the freedoms it suspends
    is a moron.\r\n\r\nYou cannot force someone to share something. Sharing is a natural
    liberty. Copyright derogates from that liberty, so the most you can do is to undo
    copyright."
- id: 1030
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: ''
  date: !binary |-
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  content: ! "\"If copyleft is the restoration of those freedoms suspended by copyright\"\r\n\r\nThis
    depends upon whether you are talking about strong or weak copyleft. The beginning
    of my post gave two clauses specifying that I am talking about strong copyleft,
    such as the GPL, not BSD or Apache licenses. As you said yourself, copyleft is
    a specific means of deploying copyright against its original purpose. For legal
    enforcement, however, strong copyleft depends upon copyright. Without some form
    of \"ownership\", strong copyleft would not be possible as it would be impossible
    to force others to re-share (on distribution etc). The merit of strong vs. weak
    copyleft can be debated until the cows come home (and slashdot is better trolling
    ground).\r\n\r\n\"You cannot force someone to share something.\"\r\n\r\nStrong
    copyleft, relying on copyright for enforcement, does just that. I will share my
    work, so long as those who use the work are forced to share under the same terms.
    I don't think this is an unreasonable goal. However, I do want some guarantee
    that when I share work under a strong copyleft license, there will be some legal
    recourse if somebody wishes to appropriate that work for commercial gain, without
    sharing back.\r\n\r\nI note, from your own website, that you think Affero licenses
    are misguided. However, your definition of freedom is here strictly weak copyleft.
    In some senses, by demanding strong copyleft, yes, I am restricting someone's
    freedom. However, that restriction only applies if the person wishes to withhold
    the freedom to modify software/content from other people, which is a tradeoff
    that I am happy to embrace. \r\n\r\nWhile on this topic, Affero gives no privilege
    of \"control\" (http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?s=Natural-IP&c=copyfarleft)
    over someone else's computer. It requires that if you run software which you have
    modified that is covered by the license, you must re-distribute the source; not
    operating someone elses' computer. This is to prevent corporations taking someone's
    work, modifying it and running it as a service on a networked machine -- yet again
    merely profiting from those who would share. The Affero is not an \"invasion of
    privacy\", it's asking that anything you profit by and run on your own computer,
    you share the blueprint for so that others can also have the benefit.\r\n\r\n\"Anyone
    who petitions for the retention of copyright in order that copyleft licenses can
    restore the freedoms it suspends is a moron.\"\r\n\r\nAs are those who resort
    to ad hominem attacks."
- id: 1036
  author: Crosbie Fitch
  author_email: crosbie@digitalproductions.co.uk
  author_url: http://digitalproductions.co.uk
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  content: ! "What do you want?\r\n\r\nYour freedom restored?\r\n\r\nOr power over
    others?\r\n\r\nThat's essentially what it comes down to.\r\n\r\nI do not engage
    in ad hominem. I posit I provide a good definition of 'moron'."
- id: 6178
  author: Tweets that mention The Problems of Copyleft, Twitter and Tweets | Martin
    Paul Eve -- Topsy.com
  author_email: ''
  author_url: http://topsy.com/trackback?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.martineve.com%2F2010%2F11%2F04%2Fthe-problems-of-copyleft-twitter-and-tweets%2F&amp;utm_source=pingback&amp;utm_campaign=L2
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  content: ! '[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Carla Maria Camargo, Martin
    Eve. Martin Eve said: Remember, though, that CopyLeft uses copyright; it&#039;s
    not a replacement: (c) + license http://bit.ly/gADGP7 #dr11 @CamargoCarla @libgoddess
    [...]'
- id: 6689
  author: tryokane
  author_email: tryo_legend@yahoo.com.sg
  author_url: ''
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  content: I have a problem with copyleft. I think copyrighted material and copyleft
    material cannot mix. Let's say i am doing course work and i had to present a report.
    I took both wikipedia's resource and a resource from a book which have different
    licenses. Wikipedia's copyleft can never change the book's copyright content to
    it's copyleft license. So what is the conclusion of this?
- id: 6690
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: 1.) Your problem is with copyright, not copyleft. Copyleft merely uses
    copyright to enforce certain conditions that anybody else could also enforce if
    they so chose. 2.) Wikipedia's material is licensed under a Creative Commons system
    anyway, so you can use it. 3.) Scholarly course work or publications can cite
    copyrighted material under "fair dealing" or "fair use" provisions.
---
<p>There has been a trend, in recent days, of moving towards providing tweets under various licenses; most prominently, Creative Commons Non-commercial Sharealike. While I thoroughly approve of strong copylefting, there were some issues that struck me as incredibly problematic with this stance and I would like, in this post, to briefly explore a few of these areas.</p>
<p><strong>1.) Copyleft depends upon Copyright</strong><br />
In order to be able to license something, you have to hold the copyright to it. Brock Shinen, an intellectual property lawyer, has written an informative website focusing upon <a href="”http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com/”">whether a tweet is copyrightable</a>. While not formal legal advice, Brock concludes that although “a protectable tweet” could exist “in theory”, “I have read hundreds if not thousands of Tweets and have yet to read one I believe would be protectable, but the possibility exists. The question is not: Are Tweets Copyrightable. The question is: Is This Tweet Copyrightable.”</p>
<p>In short, if a tweet is expressing something not covered by copyright law (facts, titles, slogans, short phrases, non-original material), the fact that you wrote it does not mean that you own exclusive rights to it.<br />
Now, as Copyleft depends upon copyright for its enforcement (why do you think the GPL requires a copyright notice at the top of every file of code?), if the material you are tweeting comes with license conditions, it MUST be copyrightable and copyrighted. Although a copyright notice is not required (an author's name is sufficient), if your tweet is not copyrightable, you don't have a leg to stand on.</p>
<p><strong>2.) Retweeting</strong><br />
Assuming, for the moment, that tweets are, in general, copyrightable and copyrighted (as the determined copylefter would have it), Twitter's primary functionality revolves around the ability to re-tweet other peoples' posts. This is all well and good, but has some fundamental problems for the determined copyleftist. First off: the fundamental assumption behind copylefting your tweets is that they are copyrighted and you want others to respect the copyright (and left) on your tweets. If, therefore, you re-tweet somebody else's post that has no explicit license, are you not (by your own assumption) violating their copyright?</p>
<p>Even more importantly, though, by applying a Copyleft license to your tweets you are preventing yourself from participating in a vital portion of Twitter's functionality. By the standards already mentioned, if you were to re-tweet another person's copyrighted tweet and, thereby, force their work under your own license, this would be a gross re-licensing violation. If you copyleft your tweets, you can only re-tweet posts under a compatible license.</p>
<p><strong>3.) Visibility of Copyleft notice</strong><br />
Twitter only archives 3200 tweets (as far as I know). If you specify that you are copylefting all future tweets, there will come a time when that notice will no longer be visible anywhere on your timeline. Although technically (under the aforementioned points), nobody should be reusing your tweets for anything, because they are copyrighted, if this permission notice isn't visible, I'm not sure as to the enforceability of the license.</p>
<p>These are just thoughts that occurred to me and I would be extremely interested in feedback and thoughts from anybody else who has thought about these issues.</p>