Creative Commons is an alternative to Copyright, similar to the GNU Licence, where you can choose what others can and cannot legally do with your work. Consider this idea applied to music. Piracy is no longer an issue, as you can (and are encouraged) to distribute such work.
For an example of such a licence, check the bottom of this page. This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0.
Randal Monroe has a little fun with the free distribution of work in his web comic (the joke runs from 341-346).
