Why is this FAQ licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)?
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Why is this FAQ licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)? by Libertarianism FAQ 0 1970-01-01
At first glance, it would seem pretty ironic for an FAQ that lambasts intellectual property rights to place restrictions on its own distribution, even if just attribution. But asking for attribution is consistent with libertarianism.
It is to prevent people passing this FAQ off as their own work, as they could get social/monetary benefits from doing so, and that should be considered fraud. Even if they don't explicitly claim to be the author when using its contents, that is likely to be assumed by most readers, so not explicitly disclaiming it should be treated as fraud.
This does not mean that anyone who doesn't provide attribution must be sued into oblivion; the punishment must be proportional to the crime, after all, and in most cases, any personal clout gained from omitting attribution will be negligible. But for the very few cases where it's not, the license facilitates the prosecution of such fraud in the current legal system.