“ANY legislation that makes mankind’s culture a hazard rather than a birthright” – Again, I agree with the principle you’re arguing – but to be pedantic, the reality and practicality is that mankind’s culture is not necessarily an entirely positive thing, and as such you will inevitably find arguably useful legal hazards associated with elements of mankind’s culture. I would argue that banning child pornography from display in the street is potentially a desirable restriction on what is arguably ‘culture’. But this has little to do with copyright; merely with choosing the end of the telescope to look through.

Bear in mind that copyright used to not be provided automatically. You had to register for it, or at least make it clear you were claiming/reserving the privilege annulling others' right to make copies. It's doubtful there's much of a groundswell in support of a reversion.

We're rapidly moving to 'individuals don't recognise copyright' and 'corporations obey and enforce it', with the more mercenary lawyers such as ACS:Law among the latter preying on the former. You do know that 'not recognising copyright' is effectively equivalent to 'copyleft' don't you? One has legalese, the other doesn't.

As copyright becomes more dangerous it may be recognised that FBI warnings aren't enough. Works may have to be divided into 'Harmless' and 'You are liable to end up in prison if you sing any songs on this CD in earshot of a collection society mobster'. The latter needing something like a radioactive hazard sign or black and yellow chevrons. So, just for that it may be necessary to make all works copyleft or 'non-copyrightable' by default, unless the author pays for a monopoly and 'Bankruptcy/Imprisonment Hazard!' labels.

But as I've already intimated it's likely that before that futile reform it will be realised that there shouldn't be ANY legislation that makes mankind's culture a hazard rather than a birthright. It is not a matter of ensuring that only those wealthy corporations who can afford to pay for the privilege can jeopardise the public, but that NO-ONE jeopardises the public.

You're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. It's not that copyright shouldn't be granted to mere mortals, but that mere mortals should be immune from privileges – instruments of injustice. If corporations truly think they do better with monopolies than without, that's their folly, but we can tolerate it only as long as they only use such unnatural weapons against unnatural persons such as themselves.

Now, I don't know if common law recognises implicit licenses of copyright, but perhaps it does. If so I'm just proposing an explicit recognition and statutory definition of UK common law.

Not very revolutionary. But perhaps subversive?

Anything else only has potential merit in hastening copyright's demise.

I wrote the article I linked to as an example of the only kind of reform that could be accepted by the copyright cartel, i.e. as one simultaneously more draconian whilst also being copyleft by default – enabling individuals to more quickly adapt to more equitable business without it.

Unfortunately, it didn't get any traction. So what we have now is just the 'more draconian' bit, i.e. ACTA. Although, it seems that a tiny few still have some qualms about measures that see people such as Emmanuel Nimley in jail for 6 months for pointing their iPhone at the cinema screen. We'll see what happens after ACTA is ratified and each country's legislation 'harmonises' with it.

'Copyleft by default' is effectively the people's DIY legislation. The coders started the ball rolling with the Free Software Movement. Other artists will follow.

I think you're just exhibiting the 'bargaining' phase prior to the 'acceptance' phase of recognising copyright's demise. Your questions are of a hypothetical copyright reform, one that I don't think will ever come about. So, it's really rather moot.

Providing a covenant not to sue, or a copyright neutralising license with one's work, is ethical. It is any attempt to exploit copyright's unethical suspension of the public's liberty that is thus also unethical.

Would it adequately solve some of the issues you have with copyright?
Would it provide the 'innocent reproducer' with a defence when non-commercially reproducing/modifying work they come across that isn't accompanied by a licence?
Would it boost the commons and legitimise not-for-profit sharing and reworking of more works (unless the creator express a wish to contrary?)
Would it have undesirable side-effects (such as DRM of some form? term extension? enforcement? economic effects?)
Could the idea usefully be made more sophisticated, e.g. making it such that explicit departures from the default public licence must be expressly renewed every (xx) years? That after (y) multiples of the (xx) period, the work falls into the public domain outright?
Would it strike a fair balance between stakeholders in the copyright debate?
Could it be implemented without a break with the UK's international copyright treaty/agreement obligations? With EU harmonisation?
Is there a particular type of copyrighted work which this could be applied to if a government wanted to experiment?

The effect of such a policy on DRM usage and development is one of the questions I have concerning this.

Not a solution that ever got traction I guess – but did it get rebuttals

(besides *your own*, which seem to be based on the premise that copyleft is

wrong because copyright is wrong)?