copyleft

American  

[kop-ee-left] / ˈkɒp iˌlɛft /

noun

1. the right to freely use, modify, copy, and share software, works of art, etc., on the condition that these rights be granted to all subsequent users or owners.

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verb (used with object)

1. to secure copyleft for (software, works of art, etc.)

Etymology

Origin of copyleft

First recorded in 1960–65; modeled on copyright ( def. )

Example Sentences

Videos that fall into the Public Domain, Creative Commons, and CopyLeft are fair game for downloading.

From Fox News

Doctorow — whose copyleft views are well known — calls the rest of the EU proposal “a pretty unobjectionable, technical set of revisions to a pretty important statute that has gone long in the tooth.”

From The Verge

Grillo’s and Casaleggio’s own versions of that meeting differ—each claiming the other made contact first—but the comedian recalls a man with no doubts in his mind, explaining notions such as “webcasting,” “direct democracy,” “chatterbot,” “wiki,” “social network,” and “copyleft,” and more generally resembling “either a wicked genius or a sort of St. Francis who, instead of speaking to wolves and birds, spoke to the internet.”

From Slate

Perhaps the most significant innovation in the GNU Manifesto is a method of rights protection known as “copyleft,” which gave rise to GNU GPL software licenses, the first of which was issued in 1989.

From The New Yorker

Developers who released software under lax free licenses, without copyleft, all joined the open-source camp, along with some others who released under GNU GPL.

From The New Yorker