The reason that I only work within the public domain is because of the
misconception that copyright monopolies are the only means by which
artists and authors may be paid for their work. However, this is a myth
that has been propagated since the copyright monopoly was originally
decreed by the King of England in the 16th century, who, in order to
control seditious publications at that time, designated a single
publishing firm of his choosing, that any and all authors who wished to
have anything at all printed were compelled to use. Naturally, this firm
would not accept any material that in any way painted the government in
a less than perfect light, and all other printing by any other
individual or company was a criminal act. The next king was much more in
favor of openness, and would have allowed any and all publication to
flourish once again, but the former king's chosen publishing firm was
sitting rather pretty financially, and petitioned Parliament to allow
them to continue to have the monopoly, citing of course putting food on
the table and supporting families as the reason to allow the monopoly to
continue to exist. This gave rise to what we now call copyright, which
continues to propagate these myths to this day. As it turns out, now
more than ever, we have technology that will allow artists and authors
to be fairly compensated for their work without censorship or monopoly
of any kind, but this technology is seen by the powers that be as a
threat rather than an alternative solution. For further information
explained in a better way than I can do in an e-mail, have a look at
http://questioncopyright.org/promise
Also, the rest of the questioncopyright.org site has even more really
good information about what a copyright monopoly is, what it is not and
how to best debunk the myths surrounding it. Hope this helps, at least a
little.
~Kyle
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