The Verge quotes: "I think that with respect to content that’s already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ‘90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been 'freeware,' if you like, that’s been the understanding."
This statement is quite wrong. People have complained about content farms and plagiarists ripping off their content for ages. The only kinds of Web content I can think of where his statement could apply are open source software (for the more permissive licenses) and Stack Overflow posts. Almost everything else was posted with the intent of copyright.
Open source software is posted with the intent of copyright. Copyright is what enforces the license, which is what makes it open source. For BSD/Apache2 etc the license still requires attribution.
This statement is quite wrong. People have complained about content farms and plagiarists ripping off their content for ages. The only kinds of Web content I can think of where his statement could apply are open source software (for the more permissive licenses) and Stack Overflow posts. Almost everything else was posted with the intent of copyright.