An Introduction to Copyright
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Introduction
Every time you produce a creative work and put it in a permanent form, you gain a copyright on it. A copyright is the right for you to make copies of your work, or moreso, to restrict others from copying your work. Since March 1st, 1989, copyright assignment has been automatic.
With a copyright, you reserve all rights to modifying and distributing your work. You can sell your work, give it away, anything you want. Some works are not eligible for copyright, however. For example, a phonebook or a calendar cannot be assigned copyright. These works are not creative, and so they are not assigned copyright. Certain parts of the work may have copyright, like pictures in the calendar, or logos for businesses in the phonebook.
Public domain
When a work's copyright expires, it enters the public domain. The public domain is for works that don't have a copyright anymore, or are not eligible for copyright. Copyright for a work expires 70 years after the creator's death. Public domain works belong to everybody in a sense, and can be modified, distributed, or copied without limit. You can technically enter your own work into the public domain if you wish to. This ensures people's freedoms to use your work. However, a better option would be using free licenses.
Free licenses
Free licenses are content licenses that allow users certain freedoms when using the work.
Free software licenses
GNU GPL
The GNU GPL (GNU General Public License) is a well-known example of a free license. The GPL is a free software license, meaning that it is designed to be used for free softeware. Many free software projects distribute their code under the GNU GPL. The GPL is a copyleft license, meaning that any modification or redistribution must be released under the GPL as well.
Free content licenses
Not all free licenses are for free software. There are several free content licenses.
GNU FDL
One of these free content licenses is the GNU FDL (GNU Free Documentation License). The GNU FDL is designed for technical material such as software manuals, educational material such as textbooks, and pratical material such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. Several projects use the GNU FDL. One known example is Wikipedia. All of Wikipedia's encyclopedia pages are available under the GNU FDL. The GNU FDL is a good license for what it is designed for.
Creative Commons
A well known set of free content licenses are the Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving our art and creativity and making it free. The Creative Commons licenses are on a mix-and-match basis. This means you have a greater choice of licensing your content. Creative Commons licenses are not designed for any specific type of content.
