Comment by MobiusHorizons

It is an interesting thought experiment, but would pretty much make standalone copy able creative work like photography, books, music, or movies impossible to sell. Works could be created on commission, but there would be a strong disincentive for producing any work without commission.

1. People who make money from GPL software typically make their money from support contracts or from running a service. Unlike software, photography, books, music and movies don’t require any ongoing maintenance once created to keep them running or up to date. There is some value in the distribution of physical copies, but digital distribution would have almost no value.

2. Math is pretty much in this boat already. Most math work is either directly paid for by a company that consumes it, or is academic work with incredibly high barriers to entry and constant hustling for grant funding. I wouldn’t wish that on any field, would you?

3. Take for example Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. While the characters are new, they draw upon a rich mythology from the public domain (eg dragons, goblins, wizards, witches, etc).

It is an interesting discussion, but I expect removing the freedom to use public domain works outside of the public domain would was to very bad outcomes.