Abstract

Free software introduces a challenge to the classical conception of individual rights. The model of software licensing given by the General Public License generates the question whether it constitutes an exercise or a wavering of copyright. It is argued in this paper that the later alternative is entrenched in the classical concept of freedom as autonomy, which, by its turn, is reflected in a classical conception of individual rights based on the model of propriety as a dominion over an exclusive object (res). We provide grounds for a concept of non-exclusive individual rights, based on the notion of freedom as reciprocity, in order to obtain more solid legal foundations for the free licensing of software. The concept of freedom as reciprocity and the corresponding reconstruction of non-exclusive subjective rights achieved in this paper is an exercise in general theory of law and thus may be applied to other legal fields where the classical notion of freedom and the property of exclusivity do not fit properly.