Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

My speech today is about copyright and copyleft.

(ask the audience) How many of you heard about copyright? Very good. Since most/some/few of you know of copyright, I suppose you may have questions and comments. Please note down your questions during my speech, and we will have a discussion session after the speech. Thank you.

(If someone knows of copyright) Now, Ms./Mr., please share with us your understanding of copyright. Thank you.

Once upon a time, in the age of the printing press, an industrial regulation was established to cover the business of writing and publishing. It was called copyright. Copyright’s purpose, was to encourage publication. The method used was to make publishers get permission from authors for using their recent works. Copyright provided a public benefit, as intended, with little burden on the public. It did its job well—back then.

Copyright laws are created such that unauthorized selling or copying of the work of an author is not legally publishable and protects the author. A copyrighted work can only be copied or sold after taking prior permission from the author.

Most creative works that are placed in a fixed medium can be copyrighted, which means the creator owns the work and no one can use it without permission. Computer software and source code falls into this category and so is eligible to be copyrighted. The advantage of digital information technology is that it facilitates copying and manipulating information, including software, musical recordings and books. Networks offered the possibility of unlimited access to all sorts of data.

However, because of copyright, readers who made use of their computers to share published information were technically copyright infringers. The world had changed around this law, so that what was once an industrial regulation on publishers had become a restriction on the public it was meant to serve.

Richard Stallman developed a method for software or documentation to be modified, and distributed back to the community, provided it remains Libre. An author can place her copyright into the work, and use distribution terms, which gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the code, but only if those distribution terms remain unchanged. This ensures that the source code and the freedoms are legally inseparable. This is known as “copyleft”. Copyleft gives rights for anyone who wants to modify and distribute the original creation provided they use the same Copyleft license.

Unless stated otherwise, a copyleft license lasts as long as the copyright on the original work is in place. An example of a copyleft license is the GNU General Public License (GPL), innovated by Richard Stallman, which only allows the modified work to be distributed under the original licensing terms. It ensures that the works and all their future forms remain copylefted.

In the field of software, there is proprietary software, also sometimes called closed-source software, it retains its full copyright, meaning no reuse is permitted. The source code is usually secret and the owner might limit the number of computers you can use the software on for each license you buy. Microsoft Office is a common example of proprietary software.

Free software, freedom-respecting software, on the other hand, uses copyleft licenses, such as GNU General Public License, means that every user of the program is free to get the program’s source code and change the program to do what she wants, and also free to give away or sell copies, either exact or modified. This means the users are in control. With the users in control of the software, nobody has power to impose nasty features on others.

Even if you don’t exercise this control yourself, you are part of a society where others do. If you are not a programmer, other users of the program are. They will probably find and remove any nasty features, which might spy on or restrict you, and publish safe versions. You will have only to select to use them—and since all other users will prefer them, that will usually happen with no effort on your part.

In summary, copyleft is an application of the copyright law. Free software uses copyleft licenses to ensure users’ control over the program.

Thank you.