CypherPunks anti-License (CPL)

Phillip H. Zakas pzakas at toucancapital.com
Thu Feb 1 21:54:33 PST 2001


I'd include something along the lines of:

'use the code at your own risk.  No warranties expressed or implied.  This
is the entire warranty and supercedes anything else you might have heard or
read about this code. The code might work or it might not.  it might include
stolen or 'borrowed stuff' and it might not.'

phillip

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
[mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of Adam Back
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 10:52 PM
To: cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
Subject: CypherPunks anti-License (CPL)




Some may recall the "cypherpunks license" debate back in 1998 and
continuing for a few hundred posts with contributions from Richard
Stallman, Eric Raymond, Eric Young, and numerous others.

It starts around here (a little before, but the threading doesn't go
back past subject line change).

http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/dir.1998.09.28-1998.10.04/msg00018.ht
ml

(The search tool on http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/ doesn't
seem to work for pairs of words.  But google will find lots of
"cypherpunks license" on inet-one.)

So I was releasing some source code I wrote a couple of days ago, and
it struck me that perhaps it might be fun to try doing what was
discussed back then, and put a license on it which explained the
motivations and made the thing a little more free than putting it in
the public domain.  (I so far have put no license at all on anything
I've released).

So here's a cypherpunks license proposal.

Generally it's a statement of how things would be if there were no IP
laws governing copyright and related licensing, and an attempt to
allow people to act as close to as if such laws did not exist given
current laws.  In addition for people who publish anonymously, and
consume anonymously it avoids making silly claims based on force
monopoly backed legal constructs which couldn't be applied to an
anonymous actor.

It tries to say:

- you can do what you want with this, and I can't change my mind about
  these terms for this copy

- I won't attack you in court for IP related laws

- you can redistribute it under other licenses

- you can claim you wrote it

- you can advertise it anyway you like

- copyright isn't compatibile with privacy, and anyway needs to die.

- you don't have to send me patches

This is not to say a distributor would necessarily like all of these
things but it acknowledges that he would not able to enforce these
things in an IP law free world.  Instead such requests are recognised
for what they are -- requests only.

I'm not sure about the implications of the fact that the author could
change his mind, and/or distribute different copies of the same under
different licenses.  Presumably if someone has a copy you released
with the statement that it is in the public domain, and that you won't
revoke that, you can't then do anything to them in a court afterwards
relating to their use or further distribution.

The acronym is a little bit of a stretch, but I thought it would be
more easily fit into the GPL, MPL pattern and so be recognised as to
do with licensing.

It struck me after a while that it was not a license because a license
presumes you have some right to exert control.  So I used
anti-license.  It's a notice that the work is placed into the public
domain together with a pledge about behavior to expect from the
distributor.

Also notice that the person making the pledge is not called the
licensor (as it isn't a license), and also not the author as the
distributor doesn't have to be the author.  The CPL presumes people
will distribute collections of things where they are not the author,
copyright holder, and are barred under existing laws from distributing
perhaps.

There's also this crappy law against illegal contracts, which may
easily affect this in some circumstances.

Also there is the requests clause.  It tries to say that the CPL
distributor won't enforce in court his requests.  This seems
reasonable enough otherwise that would violate the spirit of the CPL,
and would anyway not be a request, but more a threat.

And of course the CPL is itself distributed under the CPL, so anyone
can change it, call the changed versions whatever they want etc.

I suppose the only reasonable request to place on the CPL would be to
mark modified versions as modified to avoid confusion, so that people
know what they're referring to.

Well here we go... comments solicited.

Below in text, or here:

      http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/

(I may edit this as things occur to me, or people comment on things).

Adam

======================================================================
Cypherpunks anti-License

Intent

The intent of the Cypherpunks anti-License (CPL) is to inform users
that they are free to use and redistribute the indicated work or any
derived or modified work in any manner they choose. Works distributed
under the CPL are in the Public Domain.

Licensing

The CPL is not a license, it does not require the user to do or not do
anything; the user does not agree to any terms, because there are no
terms, and the user does not need to do anything to indicate
acceptance or rejection of the CPL.

Non Litigation

The CPL serves to pledge to the user that the distributors will behave
in a manner consistent with the non-existance of Intellectual Property
(IP) laws as far as they are able. The distributors will not use or
participate as far as they are able to government legal systems to
attempt to enforce requests restricting the use, modifications, or
redistribution of the work for perpetuity. The distributor may prefer
to be anonymous to preclude attempts to coerce them into enforcing IP
laws relating to this work against their will.

Requests

The work may be distributed with some distributor requests in addition
to the CPL. The distributor pledges similarly to not attempt to use IP
laws to enforce these requests.

Redistribution

Users choosing to redistribute this work may change anything about the
work, including distributing it under a different license, and adding
or removing previous distributors requests.

Interpretation

The CPL is completely liberal. Here are some examples of implications
of this which are not true for many licenses. The user can
redistribute the work or a derived or modified work

   * under a different license of their choosing
   * with or without source code as they choose
   * without acknowledging the distributors or authors
   * with false or innaccurate claims about authorship of the work
   * advertise without acknowledging the authors

Requests can be arbitrary, but are requests only. Example of requests
that the distributor may choose to make:

   * that improvements to the work be drawn to the distributors attention
   * that improvements to the work be released back to the distributor
     under the CPL
   * that the distributors name not be used to advertise derived works
     without the distributors approval

Legacy Considerations

The distributor may choose to inform the user of his opinion of the IP
status of the work, for example by identifying any IP law restricted
aspects such as the copyright holders of parts or the whole of the
work, trademark owners of trademarks used in the work, potentially
applicable patents on algorithms or ideas contained in the work, but
the distributor is not obliged to do so and takes no responsibility
for the accuracy of such information.

Background

The CPL is written from a mindset which derides the very concept of
Intellectual Property restrictions as being incompatible with a free
society.

Cryptographically assured anonymity and anonymous use of Internet
resources mean that denizens of cypherspace can ignore copyright,
licenses attempting to control use and distribution of works, and
patents on ideas. It is not possible to enforce IP laws by calls to
government legal systems when the flaunter is strongly anonymous.

The enforcement of IP law and anonymity are in direct conflict. To
fully enforce IP laws, anonymity would have to be
outlawed. Cypherpunks believe this would be a bad thing, because
control of information imparts power, and anonymity gives individuals
control over disclosure of information about themselves and their
actions.
======================================================================






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