A license designed to promote a continuing culture of free thinking and creative expression. It addresses human expression, largely through art practices, and applies specifically to the works produced by such practices.
Note: After I saw the need and decided to write this in 2002, other licenses have emerged that enable a similar thing. I’m leaving this license online for the sake of anyone interested but I do not recommend using it anymore. As for the other licenses, I’m referring of course to the great work the Creative Commons (CC) has developed. One of the CC licenses does a very nice job, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (by-nc-sa) license.
I recommend using the Creative Commons license by-nc-sa because it is available in multiple languages, multiple countries’ jurisdictions, and has been scrutinized from a legal perspective (unlike the P-LILEC).
© 2002 Joshua Chalifour–Permission is granted for verbatim copying of this document, in any medium. A copy of this P-LILEC (in many different formats) is available through the World Wide Web at the URL: http://www.phydeau.org/lilec/
1. Introduction
(A) Purpose of the P-LILEC
The purpose of this license is to state and sustain the spirit of liberty in which authors wish their works to exist as part of our world. This license is written specifically for use with any work of what humans generally consider artistic expression. While people may not agree on what qualifies as art, expression, and free speaking and thinking, or how to determine and identify what “things” manifest these notions, it is not the purpose of this license to address a qualification or identification task. It is however, part of the purpose of this license to gather the different notions of works of human expression, through flexible and broad terms, under a statement that nourishes our continuing liberty and creativity.
(B) Summary of the P-LILEC
Essentially, a work licensed under care of the P-LILEC may be reproduced and distributed in any way one would like provided the distribution is in accord with all the intentions of the author as set forth in this license. The license divorces creative expression from economic, trade, business, and monetary perversions, while protecting artists’ ability to earn a living through their efforts. For-sale distribution of the work may take place only under the terms of a separate agreement (not the P-LILEC) with the work’s author(s). While one is free to make copies of the work to share, the author can still earn money through sales of the work because only the author has the right to authorize sales or payment-oriented services involving the work. Those who copy, distribute, or otherwise use a work under care of the P-LILEC, without a separate and directly expressed agreement with the work’s author(s), are not entitled to receive payment for their activities involving the work; if they were to receive payment they would be acting contrary to the author’s intentions.
2. Statements of Intention
(A) The author that expressed or is expressing this work intends this work to be available as described in these Statements of Intention. Hereafter, the author’s Statements of Intention refer to this P-LILEC.
(B) The author that expressed or is expressing this work intends this work to exist as part of the world and human reality. This work sustains, through its freely expressed manifestation, human liberty in thinking and being.
(C) The author of this work intends that any person is at liberty to copy (including reproducing or making new instances) of the work, in whole or part, and in any medium, so long as the party copying the work is courteous enough to do and does do the following:
i. appropriately and accurately identifies the work’s author in relation to the work,
ii. clearly indicates that this work is licensed under the P-LILEC,
iii. understands that apprehending the work under care of the P-LILEC is an agreement to act in accord, where it concerns the apprehended work, with the author’s Statements of Intention.
(D) Sale(s) of the work or the work’s involvement in sales is an issue and activity not necessarily related to the author’s intentions for the work’s public availability, accessibility, or reproduceability. The author does not intend the availability of the work, when obtained under care of the P-LILEC, to apply in any way toward sales of or involving the work. Sales includes products or services that may be provided for a fee.
(E) The author of this work may make this work available to, for, or with parties under the auspices of other licenses or agreements. If the author does make the work available under the auspices of other licenses or through different agreements, these do not bear on the validity or availability of instances of the work obtained or apprehended under care of the P-LILEC.
3. Terminology
i. “Work” refers to the thing for which this license applies. Some examples of many possibilities include visual arts such as painting or photography, written works such as poetry or novels, physical works such as dance choreography, aural works such as music or spoken word performance, multimedia works such as film or many types of internet content, etc.
ii. “Express” (including variations such as “expression” or “expressing”) refers to the wide-variety of combinations in which the work may be made a part of reality. This is difficult to encapsulate with “create” because the work may exist only in performance and would not be, at any one moment, the whole creation. “Express” is hereby used to generally refer to whatever a work’s author does, through his or her artistic or creative activities, in order to bring about the work’s manifestation. A few examples: If I am a dancer, by performing, I express my work. If I am a novelist, by thinking of, and writing the text for a book, I express my work. In these cases I likely conceive and then express my conception in some form that is shareable by others, or I collaborate with others to express something.
iii. “Author” refers to the original person or people that created, expressed, or somehow made the work manifest. This does not mean, for example, financial backers if these backers only contributed funds to bring some project to fruition. It refers to the individual or group of people that conceived of the work and expressed the work.
iv. “Intention” refers to the author’s desire in expressing the work as a part of the world, shared human community, or reality. This depends on how one understands people access or apprehend other people’s work.
v. “Care” is used similarly to “auspice” and generally meaning “under the terms of.” A work obtained or apprehended under the care of the P-LILEC is a work the author intends to be available to everyone so long as those obtaining or apprehending it agree to sustain the author’s intentions as set forth in the P-LILEC.
4. Understanding
The author of a work recognizes that as the work is part of the world he or she does not intend the work to impose bounds on others being, when others apprehend the work. If a person enjoys the author’s work and would like to share his or her experience with others, it is natural that the person freely do so. If the person were not allowed to do so, his or her experience and hence being, would be limited in an unseemly way.
Sales of a work or fees charged in relation to a service that involves apprehending the work are a concern of an entirely different domain. Sales of or involving the work are typically a means of earning money. Such sales would not be possible if the work did not exist. It is reasonable that the author responsible for expressing the work, receive remunerations for the effort and inspiration–for enriching our world. It is not reasonable for the author to expect such remunerations at the expense of other peoples’ liberty. The P-LILEC states a reciprocal courtesy between author and those apprehending the work. If one is to profit monetarily through use of the work, it is reasonable that at the very least, it is the author.
4a. Examples for Clarification
Suppose the author of a novel makes a deal with a publishing company to sell paper-based copies of his novel. Previously, this author licensed the novel under the P-LILEC. The author intends that people are at liberty to copy the novel, in perpetuity. Indeed, the author recognizes that it is that sort of behavior that fertilizes further human creativity. Because of P-LILEC section 2, paragraph D, the author intends that people who freely obtained a copy of the novel do not begin selling copies of the novel (though they are at liberty to distribute the novel at no charge so long as they are courteous enough to abide by the author’s intentions). If one wants to copy or reproduce the novel in order to sell it or involve it in the sale of something else (the publishing company that hopes to sell copies of the book) then the company will need to arrange a deal with the novel’s author for permission to sell or involve the novel in sales.
Finally, In order to satisfy item ii in paragraph C part 2 of the P-LILEC Statements of Intention, one may either use an official P-LILEC label (available from the Phy-d’eau website at http://www.phydeau.org) or one can include a verbatim copy of the entire P-LILEC. It is acceptable to create one’s own label–simply, the label must include a clearly legible “P-LILEC http://www.phydeau.org” — specifically, the acronym, P-LILEC should appear in all capital letters without periods. There must be a hyphen between the letter P and the first letter L. There must be a space between the letter C of the aconym and the uniform resource locator (URL). The URL must appear in its entirety as http://www.phydeau.org, without any additional characters.
5. Apology
This license appeals to those that feel strongly in favor of not imposing bounds on human being. This license appeals to those that feel strongly in favor of keeping commercial interests from impinging on or perverting liberty in human expression. This is a license for living intentions, not for stagnant rules.
I intentionally wrote this license with vague areas. The point is to reinforce that we, as humans, continue to freely express ourselves and inspire one another. We ought to engage in fresh debate at every instance of a violation of this spirit of liberty. It provokes both a strange and lame feeling when one must present a license for one’s intentions, however in the present-day we are making such licenses necessary. Using misguided laws and an overwhelmingly business-centered atmosphere, we are colonizing our own thinking and being, under strange limitations and notions of “property.” The P-LILEC is intended for enabling peaceful protest to this colonization. I hope that by acting now (through the above statements of what we should find obvious) our future need for a license such as the P-LILEC becomes unnecessary.
–Joshua Chalifour 2002
End P-LILEC]
Addendum
After I saw the need and decided to write this in 2002, other licenses have emerged that enable a similar thing. I’m leaving this license online for the sake of anyone interested but I do not recommend using it anymore. As for the other licenses, I’m referring of course to the great work the Creative Commons (CC) has developed. One of the CC licenses does a very nice job, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (by-nc-sa) license.
I recommend using the Creative Commons license by-nc-sa because it is available in multiple languages, multiple countries’ jurisdictions, and has been scrutinized from a legal perspective (unlike the P-LILEC).