weeks - 2:16 am on Jul 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

You could say the same thing of Jonas Salk who patented the polio vaccine precisely to protect the vaccine and keep unscrupulous people from taking advantage. If you have something that you want to remain free and protect the integrity of the system, you have to have a license of some sort. If it gets released into the public domain, you lose control.

Right. And if you don't defend those rights, you'll lose them. The Salk example is a good one, another story, a sad one, that makes the point is how Bill Watterson, the creator of the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes, saw his creations move into the marketplace, sometimes tastelessly, because he refused to license anything. Everything you see with Calvin and/or Hobbes on it is bootleg. He lost control.