COPYLEFT - LICENSING COLLABORATIVE WORKS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Authors who wish to dedicate their works to the public may think they have no need for copyright or other intellectual property rights. Howe ver, if subsequent authors make contributions to an original author's work, those subsequent authors might be entitled to assert proprietary rights in their contributions, thereby defeating the intent of the or iginal author to dedicate his work to the public. The GNU Project is a worldwide collaborative effort to develop high quality software and m ake it available to the general public. To ensure unrestricted public access, the GNU Project licenses its software under the GNU General Pu blic License (''GPL''), which prevents users from establishing proprie tary rights in either the works themselves or subsequent versions ther eof Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project, refers to this t ype of agreement as ''copyleft.'' In this note, Ira Heffan analyzes th e enforceability of the GNU GPL by analogy to shrinkwrap and shareware license agreements. He describes and analyzes the GNU GPL and conclud es that it is enforceable. He contends that copyleft is useful for oth er collaborative works distributed electronically because copyleft ass ures the works' continued availability to the public.