Although it is often said that a work is protected by copyrestriction, this is strictly not true. A work is protected through the existence of lots of copies and lots of curators.
[…]
Free and open source software has demonstrated the ethical and practical value of the opposite of copyrestriction, which is not its absence, but regulation mandating the sharing of copies, specifically in forms suitable for inspection and improvement. This regulation most famously occurs in the form of source-requiring copyleft, e.g., the GNU General Public License (GPL), which allows copyrestriction holders to use copyrestriction to force others to share works based on GPL’d works in their preferred form for modification, e.g., source code for software. However, this regulation occurs through other means as well, e.g., communities and projects refusing to curate and distribute works not available in source form, funders mandating source release, and consumers refusing to buy works not available in source form.
The future of
Alien
The sea beneath your minimal spacecraft turns adamant, grows scales like a lizard. A superhero saves you from a swarm of devious roses, cape flapping melodramatically, his last client still clinging to his side. A green-skinned native emerges from the shelter of the trees, offering to wrap you in the flag of her country. This is clearly a very dangerous planet for a would-be goddess. Everyone wants to enlist you in their battles, & I have a suspicion they won’t take love for an answer.
My response to the Venus Poetry Project, an experiment in anonymous, open-content poetry composition. (Thanks to Dana for the link.) Since I posted this three days ago, someone has already reworked it, with interesting results:
The sea
beneath your minimal
spacecraft turns adamant, grows
scales like a lizard. A superhero
saves you
from a swarm of devious roses,
cape flapping melodramatically,
his last lost cause
still clinging to his side.
A green-skinned native emerges
from the shelter of trees, offering
to wrap you in the flag
of her country. Dangerous planet
for a would-be goddess. Everyone wants
to enlist you in their battles.
I suspect they won’t take love
for an answer.
(To make your own changes to the poem, go here.)