[Wolves] Copyleft or creative commons?

[Zeth Green]

On 12/07/07, Kevanf1 <kevanf1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can somebody help me out please?  What is the difference between
> 'copyleft' and 'creative commons'?  Which would be best used for a new
> community based organisation with it's own set of documents (rules and
> guidelines etc).

Hi Kevan,

The idea of copyleft to use existing copyright laws to protect free
use. Copyleft is the general concept while creative commons (CC) is a
community group that provides off the peg licences for you to use on
your documents, audio or video; some of CC's licences are copyleft.

For what is copyleft, you can read the original author's explanation
(examples are software)

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

Not all creative commons licences are copyleft as originally
formulated. Copyleft often implies no discrimination against fields of
endeavour (i.e. use for any purpose), some CC licences fail that
because they restrict commercial uses of your work.

Then you have 'strong copyleft' vs 'weak copyleft'. Strong copyleft
implies a share alike provision, while weak copyleft permits all
modifications of your work. Some CC licences do not allow modification
so are not copyleft at all.

For creative commons see here:

http://creativecommons.org/

It has a handy licence picker that allows you to define the
permissions *you* want.

Best Wishes,
Zeth