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.