Copyright vs. Copyleft
Copyrights exist in order to protect authors of documentation or software from unauthorized copying or selling of their work. A copyright infers that only with the author's permission may such activities take place.
A Copyleft, on the other hand, provides a method for software or documentation to be modified, and distributed back to the community, provided it remains Libre.
In the case of Libre Documentation, an author can place his or her copyright into the document, and use distribution terms, such as those in the GNU Free Documentation License, which gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the code, but only if those distribution terms remain unchanged. This ensures that the source code and the freedoms are legally inseparable. This is known as "copyleft".
A Copyleft, on the other hand, provides a method for software or documentation to be modified, and distributed back to the community, provided it remains Libre.
In the case of Libre Documentation, an author can place his or her copyright into the document, and use distribution terms, such as those in the GNU Free Documentation License, which gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the code, but only if those distribution terms remain unchanged. This ensures that the source code and the freedoms are legally inseparable. This is known as "copyleft".
