Copyright is a very complicated subject, one that lawyers can devote entire careers to understanding. Also, as copyright laws vary from country to country, but the internet has a global scope, it's unsurprising that most people don't understand it.
Possibly the most frequently encountered aspect of copyright is in relation to file sharing of works like films and music. In a July 2003 study, the Pew Internet and American Life Project stated that “29 percent of Internet users [in America] have downloaded music files to their computer so they can play them anytime they want, and that of those that do, 67 percent say they do so whether the files are copyrighted or not.” (Gordon, 2005. p.6). According to the International Federation of the Photongraphic Industry (IFPI), in 2007 the ratio of unlicensed tracks downloaded to legal tracks sold was about 20 to 1 (Kennedy. 2008. p.1).
Add to this the widespread presumption that anything on the internet is free (10 public domain misconceptions), and it's clear to see why copyright owners are concerned about copyright on the internet.
Not everything is copyrighted though, there is a movement against the all rights reserved nature of copyright, known as “copyleft”, that has recently “exploded on the internet” (Ronchi, 2009. p.287) having originated within the computer development community's open source movement, retaliating against the tight restrictions of Unix and spawning the open-source Linux.
While copyright is about controlling access to works, usually to enable money to be made from them, copyleft is about granting access to your works and encouraging others to use them and build upon them, while retaining some of the rights you have as a copyright holder – most commonly attribution (the right to be credited as the author, etc.).
Today, the most widely known copyleft licenses, also known as are the GNU's “General Public License” (GPL) and its companion “GNU Free Documentation License” (GFDL) (CreativeCommns.org) and the suite developed and maintained by the Creative Commons Foundation, for example the “attribution share-alike” license, which goes by the monika “cc-by-sa”.
Proponents of the copyleft movement also use terms like “Free content”, using “Free” to mean “free as in free speech”, also known as “libre” after the French and Spanish word with the same Latin etymology from which English derives “liberty”. This is contrasted with “gratis” or “free as in beer”. (Anderson, 2009. p.16). Works can be gratis but not libre, i.e. they don't cost you anything, but you aren't free to use them – the vast majority of websites are like this. Works can also be libre but not gratis – i.e. you have to pay for the work, but once you do you have the liberty to reuse it.
Almost certainly the biggest and most well known application of a copyleft license is Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, the largest project of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is the use of the copyleft license that allows it to be edited by anyone, and to be reused by anyone (as long as you give attribution) – it's mission is to produce and disseminate free content. (Wikimedia Foundation, 2011)
Finally, some things on the internet are free (gratis and libre). These are works that are in the public domain – there are no restrictions on its use. The biggest class of public domain works are those over which the copyright has expired. When this happens depends on lots of factors, but in most cases works become public domain a certain number of years (most commonly 70) after the creator's death. This means that in 2012 works by authors such as Virginia Woolf and founder of the Scouting movement, Robert Baden-Powell will enter the public domain (PublicDomainDay.org, 2011).
References:
Anderson, C. (2009). Free:The Future of a Radical Price. Croydon: Random House
Gordon, M.S., (2005). Downloading Copyrighted Stuff from the Internet: Stealing or Fair Use? (Issues in Focus Today). [unknown location]: Enslow Publishers.
Kennedy, J. (2008). Digital Music Report 2008 – Summary. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2008-summary.pdf. [Accessed 03 December 11].
Ronchi, A.M. (2009). eCulture: Cultural Content in the Digital Age. Berlin: Springer
10 public domain misconceptions. 2011. 10 public domain misconceptions. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/10-misconceptions-about-the-public-domain.html#two. [Accessed 03 December 2011]
Creative Commos.org (2011). Copyright symbol. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.creativecommns.org/component/content/article/3-copyright-articles/23. [Accessed 03 December 2011].
PublicDomainDay.org (2011). To celebrate the role of the public domain in our societies | Public Domain Day - 1 January 2012. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.publicdomainday.org/. [Accessed 03 December 2011].
Wikimedia Foundation (2011). Our projects - Wikimedia Foundation. [ONLINE] Available at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects. [Accessed 03 December 2011].
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