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 modification. Again, the LGPL stands in between, excusing compliance with the GPL’s copyleft condition in some circumstances.

Comparing the licenses’ effects along these two dimensions illuminates the underlying bias of contemporary copyright law in favor of proprietary production. Creating a commons of freely reusable works can be accomplished only with licenses that constrain the commons-defeating features of current law. The default positions of copyright law tend to reflect assumptions that emphasize individual production under a strongly proprietary regime. Those proprietary defaults have only strengthened over time. FOSS licenses inevitably reflect that underlying copyright regime even as they work to construct an alternative. The GPL, for example, aims to make FOSS works freely reusable by restricting behaviors (such as releasing software in binary-only form or incorporating it into proprietary products) that, although not forbidden by copyright law, inhibit the growth of the commons. The GPL backs its commons-creating mandates with the threat of liability for copyright infringement if they are breached, thereby cleverly inverting the proprietary architecture of copyright to preserve a domain free from proprietary control. BSD-style licenses, in contrast, impose fewer constraints on