This article firstly talks about the birth of copyright, and explains why copyright exists and what subject matter and rights copyright laws protect. This article then explains the concept of “copyleft” and tries to give it a definition.

In the second part of this article, it discusses the copyleft application in the field of biotechnology. It compares the similarities and differences between open source software movement and open source genomics movement from two aspects: (1) hacker ethic v.s. scientific research ethos; and (2) common core concern: opening up public goods. Under the above subsection (2), the authors use the analysis framework in Professor Lawrence Lessig’s book, “The future of Ideas” to compare these two movements.