Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, naturally then this should extend to all kinds of expression, also including the Internet. Tragically, many voices are censored on the Internet. Still, many more can share content, but what rights do they, or other, have over the content?

Part I of this series: Owners rights
During a normal day you might do one or more of the following actions: Write a tweet on Twitter, comment a photo on Facebook, upload your own photos to Facebook and Flickr, write a movie review on IMDB and upload a funny movie you found to your YouTube account. All these actions add content to the Internet; content that other people can view and interact with. What rights do you have over the content you just shared?

Oksavik: Trying to get stuff done

There you have my Twitter post. It's basically yours for the taking. It's very easy to copy my text, and post it again yourself. However, it still is technically my contentTwitter - Terms of service, and you are not allowed to copy it. The second you tweet your thoughts they become available for the public, but it does not enter the public domain. If content is part of the public domain, it means that it is not owned or controlled by anyone. You can take it, use it, change it, sell it. You can however not claim copyright of the content after it has become public. If you change it you can claim copyright of the changed version of the content.WIPO - Basic notations

What about Facebook? Do you own your content on Facebook? The short answer is yes. Facebook claims that the user owns all content they share, given that it is licensed in the first place. However, below this statement it saysFacebook - Statement of rights:

...you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.

So in a way, you retain your rights, but you share it with Facebook. This is not so bad, just be careful about what you upload. Remember that Facebook relies on the users, and the users demand privacy, and if Facebook wants to remain popular it should, and will, protect the interest of its users.

The public domain sounds like a nice place, doesn't it? Where everything is free, and you can do what you like. However, if you are like me, and would like to share something, you should stay away from the public domain. There is a fine line between how much you need to change public domain content in order to claim that it is your own creation, and what will not be accepted as your own creation. If there is doubt or conflict, an expensive third part can be the only solution to the problem. Some cases involve larger companies that force content from single persons of the Internet, threatening with law suit and expensive trials. It doesn't matter if they actually do own the content, since the single person rarely will take the trouble to try to prove his or hers case. If you want content to be truly free, use a copyleft license.

Copyleft

There are many different copyright licenses today, and some are written to allow content to be shared. If the creator applies a so-called copyleft license the work can be used by others, changed by others and shared by others. The creator still attains the copyright, and any derivative work must use the same license as the parent. Copyleft is just a play on words, and has no legal meaning in the same sense as copyright. When applying a copyleft license to a work you generally agree that everyone has:

• the freedom to use the work,
• the freedom to study the work,
• the freedom to copy and share the work with others,
• the freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works under the same or equivalent license.

One of the most used copyleft licenses are Creative Commons. They offer a number of different licenses, that contains a combination of attributes. For example, this website is copyrighted under a CC license. More specifically a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0. This means that everyone can use the content, change it and share it, as long as it is only used for noncommercial uses, with the same license applied.

Even though CC often is criticized I think it contributes to a more creative environment, where artists are more liberated, and can be more openly inspired from the work of others. When you are open to sharing your work, it inspires others to do the same. Some of the best known pieces of software are open for everyone to use, change and share.

Open content

In this context the word open means that it is available for everyone, free of charge, usually with certain copyright freedoms. The largest open content project is Wikipedia. At Wikipedia everyone are able to contribute, everyone are allowed to visit and everyone can share freely. When you take a step back and think about it, it is a great idea, and thanks to the users it works. Other examples of great open projects are Mozilla Firefox, Gimp, Open Office and Linux. Open software, or open source softwareThe source is the actual code behind the program, are becoming more popular. Especially the Ubuntu operating system is appearing in new places, such as at NTNU in Trondheim. I encourage everyone to save some of their money when buying a computer, and get Ubuntu instead of Microsoft Windows.

How can huge projects like Ubuntu exist? They don't charge any money for their software, there are no fees at all and they have a large number of people working. They have the Ubuntu Shop, they receive donations from people and other organizations that just love what they do and most of the people working are dedicated volunteers. So how come Microsoft charges thousands of Norwegian kroners for their OS when you can get Ubuntu for free? I honestly don't know. Maybe you just have not heard about it before?

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Find out more about: Creative Commons, Ubuntu, Gimp, Firefox, Open source projects