Re: Copyleft Symbol

From: Asmus Freytag (t) <asmus-inc_at_ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 11:29:25 -0800

Asmus Freytag wrote:

with the non-standard symbols like the copyleft, there's the desire to
not encode stuff based on "passing activism". 

David Faulks wrote:

The samples I have seem to be from people who want to make a statement
via an anti-copyright message

The lengthy thread from 2000, and the shorter one from 2012, show that
the objections at those times fell into three main categories:

(1) Lack of (sufficient) evidence of use as an element of running text,
as opposed to a logo.

I take it that this has been addressed (modulo the usual difficulties about proving that for
unencoded symbols).

There's an interesting passage on the FSF page "What is Copyleft?" about
this symbol:

"It is a legal mistake to use a backwards C in a circle instead of a
copyright symbol. Copyleft is based legally on copyright, so the work
should have a copyright notice. A copyright notice requires either the
copyright symbol (a C in a circle) or the word 'Copyright'. [ ... ] A
backwards C in a circle has no special legal significance, so it doesn't
make a copyright notice."

Unicode has always recognized usage over official status. So this should not be an issue.

(2) Concern that the symbol was a passing fad. Christopher and Ken noted
that the fact we are talking about it again 15 years later probably
answers that concern.

Very good point.

(3) The social-statement aspect.

António wrote in 2012, referring to the copyleft symbol plus the others
he just cited (e.g. Creative Commons): "I am convinced that they were
not accepted for encoding (if they were ever even formally proposed) due
purely to ideological reasons." However, I checked the UTC document
register going back to 2000 and could not find a proposal with the word
"copyleft" in its title, so perhaps these have not been proposed after
all.

A proposal is needed, discussion on this list is useful only as far as a proposer wants to get some suggestions on how to proceed.

The recent acceptance by UTC of BITCOIN SIGN, which is also often
perceived as a logo and also sometimes associated with a social
movement, might indicate greater willingness of UTC to encode the
copyleft symbol, even discounting the effects of the Emoji Revolution.

But as always, at least for non-emoji characters, a formal proposal is
probably mandatory.

Delete "probably".

A./

--
Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸

Received on Mon Feb 15 2016 - 13:30:37 CST