crossconnects's Journal: GPL and Copyright

It seems to me that the GPL depends on copyright. It is not a public domain thing.

Copyright law gives the copyright owner a certain control over their work, that is, aside from backup and fair use rules, no one may copy that work without permission of the owner of the copyright.

The GPL freely gives people permission to copy the work, under certain restrictions. Those who cannot accept the restrictions don't get permission to copy the work at all, except within copyright law.