Plagiarism on the road to success

[Twinky]

On 2/26/2018 at 8:04 PM, Mike said:

No.  The I'm describing the two places where plagiarism matters.

First place is the big book publishers and bookstores and the authors. The US Constitution makes  special note of importance of intellectual ideas in this marketplace. Ditto with inventions. Here plagiarism means interfering with the market. It's like shoplifting or worse.

The second place is academia where degrees and grades matter. Plagiarism undercuts the whole process.

Our entire society rest on these two pillars, among others.

I think all of the GreaseSpot arguments are valid for matters within these two major institutions.

What VPW engaged in was never within these two institutions, though he had aspirations there. TWI never quite made it. In the early days it was VERY far from. It was a rural farmer country church family. Plagiarism doesn't matter there. What matters is the people get fed the Word.

So what you're saying, Mike, is that TWI was never academic, despite

(1) its purported "degrees in theology" (and a degree is a recognized level of education - it's a bit more than a school leaving cert) and

(2) the Research Dept was no academic thing, either.

If TWI had really thought its product was any good, it would have circulated it widely.  After all, that's what most authors do, isn't it?  And anyone who has researched God's Word would (by your argument) want to share it because it belongs to every person, or is it every believer?  I can't remember your "qualification" from other threads.  And some of the authors sell into an academic market, and some, like Ortberg and Yancey, sell to people who want more readable material. 

But that isn't what TWI wanted.  It would be embarrassing (at best) to be found out in plagiarism.  And even any original works (like the collaterals - if indeed there were original material there) couldn't sell in a wider market; there's so much better stuff available in an already over-provided market.  Never mind being "peer-reviewed," these things wouldn't stand up to being reviewed in any other than a captive market.

I think your comment, "It was a rural farmer country church family. Plagiarism doesn't matter there" rather belittles the abilities of rural residents.  I think if they knew he was stealing other people's intellectual property, they'd be outraged at the idea that he was passing such off as his own material.  There's probably a higher level of trust among country folk, and they don't like the theft of their own machinery and equipment; stock, crops and animals.  Whilst they'd probably gladly share ideas on production, etc, with their own kind, they'd probably be pretty upset if someone took those ideas, patented them, and tried to sell the ideas back to them.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Twinky said:

So what you're saying, Mike, is that TWI was never academic, despite

(1) its purported "degrees in theology" (and a degree is a recognized level of education - it's a bit more than a school leaving cert) and

(2) the Research Dept was no academic thing, either.

 

Right.  They wanted to be that. They did grow considerably in that direction, but it peaked around 1985, falling short of the big city version.

I'm not criticizing the sophistication of the farming community of early twi. It's just that the cares and concerns they had that were different than the big city.

What was important to them was spiritual nurture in the family church setting.  It was not the setting of the big city bookstores or the universities, where citing sources and originality are important. 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[Mike]

Twinky, I was not belittling ME when I said I was glad that the books I first received were not cluttered with footnotes and academic stuffy carefulness.  I was glad for the rural approach. My needs were not academia or mareketplace oriented one bit at all.  What I thought was important was spiritual nurture FOR ME. I did not care one twit for the sources.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[WordWolf]

5 hours ago, Mike said:

Twinky, I was not belittling ME when I said I was glad that the books I first received were not cluttered with footnotes and academic stuffy carefulness.  I was glad for the rural approach. My needs were not academia or mareketplace oriented one bit at all.  What I thought was important was spiritual nurture FOR ME. I did not care one twit for the sources.

As has come up before, simply putting END-NOTES rather than footnotes eliminates your imagined problem of "clutter."  NOBODY ever claimed "Babylon Mystery Religion" was cluttered, even you.  That book had end-notes in every chapter, and documented EVERYTHING.  BTW, "rural" people don't claim they're exempt from copyright, that's just something you've made up.

[waysider]

Coming soon to a bookstore near you!

PFAL (The Little Golden Book Edition)

 

Pre-order now an get a complimentary copy of The Pokey Little Puppy's  First BM (Believers Meeting)

Edited February 28, 2018 by waysider

[Mike]

7 hours ago, WordWolf said:

As has come up before, simply putting END-NOTES rather than footnotes eliminates your imagined problem of "clutter."  NOBODY ever claimed "Babylon Mystery Religion" was cluttered, even you.  That book had end-notes in every chapter, and documented EVERYTHING.  BTW, "rural" people don't claim they're exempt from copyright, that's just something you've made up.

I did not say "rural" people ... claim they're exempt from copyright.

I claim that there are differing sets of priorities.

For someone hungry for spiritual nurture, the bookmarket and academia are NOT important.  Bookworms and academics always think copyrights and citations are important.  That's their little world. Maybe it's yours too.

Rural folks and desperate college dropout hippies (like I was) do NOT care one twit about the priorities of bookworms and academics.  Rural folks who want to stay out of the city usually are not inclined to the academics.  There is an antagonism  against city slickers that persists to this day in the country. The priorities of the big city are viewed as totally askew.

On Sunday in the country, and 5 days per week for my first twig, the business of citations and copyrights and intellectual property was considered (compared to spiritual growth)  just plain STUPID. And it really is.

It was with great pride that I helped hundreds of other grads in 1988 to smash the copyright grip the Board of Trustees had on our lives and THRUST the film class and books into the public domain WHERE IT BELONGS.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[So_crates]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

On Sunday in the country, and 5 days per week for my first twig, the business of citations and copyrights and intellectual property was considered (compared to spiritual growth)  just plain STUPID.

So what your attempting to tell me is that people who claim to love God and want to teach me the bible think that concern someone has broken one of His commandments (a commandment repeated by Paul in Ephesians, no less) is stupid.

The same people who if anyone else would have broken fellowship would have called them on the carpet without any hesitation?

So, tell me, doesn't Ephesians relate to spiritual growth?

Doesn't being in fellowship relate to spiritual growth?

As I said, there is no loopholes or rationalizations with God. You stole or you didn't. 

As a matter of fact, God tells us to go even a step further than that: 1 Thess 5:22:

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Quote

And it really is.

Once again, you try to set your opinion up as the measure of right or wrong. Your not the measure of what's stupid or not. Nor is Saint Vic's private interpretation. The bible is.

This also shows what you really think of God.

Not only are you rationalizing someone stealing, you claiming that anyone concerned about said theft is stupid.

Which comes as no real surprise, previously you've said:

 

On 2/26/2018 at 1:40 AM, Mike said:

I think it's cool it came out that way.

I imagine God had foreknowledge of it.

What a great (and humorous) way to inject His Word into the public domain.

So what your saying is you think its cool BG Leonard and Stiles livlihood were stolen and given Saint Vic.

All those White books sold by Saint Vic could have been sold by Stiles.

All those classes sold by Saint Vic could have been given by BG Leonard.

Now tell me, does a loving father steal from one child so the other child could continue in his sinful ways?

That's playing favorites, which God doesn't do.

Edited February 28, 2018 by So_crates

[waysider]

Mike, it's one think for you to boast you are willing to and have consciously violated what are clearly established laws of the land. That's your choice. To suggest you know what was in the minds of people 50 and 60 years ago is beyond ridiculous. Did these people you are referencing even know Wierwille was stealing this material? I'm pretty sure they didn't, as Wierwille promoted himself as having insider information that hadn't been known for 2,000 years.

 

edit: You do realize, don't you, that you openly admitted to breaking the law.

"It was with great pride that I helped hundreds of other grads in 1988 to smash the copyright grip the Board of Trustees had on our lives and THRUST the film class and books into the public domain WHERE IT BELONGS."

Edited February 28, 2018 by waysider

[T-Bone]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

I did not say "rural" people ... claim they're exempt from copyright.

I claim that there are differing sets of priorities.

For someone hungry for spiritual nurture, the bookmarket and academia are NOT important.  Bookworms and academics always think copyrights and citations are important.  That's their little world. Maybe it's yours too.

Rural folks and desperate college dropout hippies (like I was) do NOT care one twit about the priorities of bookworms and academics.  Rural folks who want to stay out of the city usually are not inclined to the academics.  There is an antagonism  against city slickers that persists to this day in the country. The priorities of the big city are viewed as totally askew.

On Sunday in the country, and 5 days per week for my first twig, the business of citations and copyrights and intellectual property was considered (compared to spiritual growth)  just plain STUPID. And it really is.

It was with great pride that I helped hundreds of other grads in 1988 to smash the copyright grip the Board of Trustees had on our lives and THRUST the film class and books into the public domain WHERE IT BELONGS.

Perhaps there is a different set of priorities for those who want to defend wierwille the plagiarist…and I have a suspicion those priorities tend motivate a person to redefine words – like “spiritual growth”.

According to the dictionary spiritual   relates to the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things – or to religion or religious beliefs…now think about it – plagiarism is stealing AND lying – two sins that are condemned in the Bible – the Bible, which I assume should be the standard of religious beliefs for folks who say they’re Christian. Unless of course the person is a hypocrite  which happens to have been another deceptive quality of wierwille.

So then according to certain skewed priorities - copyright laws designed to prohibit lying and stealing are stupid when compared to developing the fine art of contradicting what the Bible says about lying and stealing. Yeah that’s some weird “spiritual growth” alright…I’d recommend getting that checked out – it might be a malignant tumor.

Edited February 28, 2018 by T-Bone
formatting

[Mike]

BTW, in 1988 I told my area leader, limb leader, and Howard Allen what we were doing with the class to punish the BOT and never need to trust them again. There was no secrecy. It was out in the open.

 

I'm so thankful to God that VPW collected together what he did,

and then was able to deliver it to me when I needed it most.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[waysider]

11 minutes ago, Mike said:

BTW, in 1988 I told my area leader, limb leader, and Howard Allen what we were doing with the class to punish the BOT and never need to trust them again. There was no secrecy. It was out in the open.

Despite what you may think, that doesn't make it legal. Every time you gave the class away for free, you deprived the organization of an income opportunity.

[Mike]

I only gave it to grads.  After 1995 they abandoned it.

[Mike]

Has anyone here ever read "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew?

I heard years after reading it that maybe some was not so factual.

But that aside.....  when I read it I felt that he was doing the right thing even though it was against the law.

From posts here am I to believe most here would condemn as against God's moral law not only Brother Andrew, but the American Revolution as well?

[waysider]

37 minutes ago, Mike said:

I only gave it to grads.  After 1995 they abandoned it.

And who did the grads give it to?

Still illegal.

14 minutes ago, Mike said:

From posts here am I to believe most here would condemn as against God's moral law not only Brother Andrew, but the American Revolution as well?

So now you're comparing yourself to Brother Andrew?

I think we both agree, Brother Andrew broke some laws. The difference between you and I is that you think we can pick and choose which laws we decide to obey.

[GoldStar]

Acts 5:29

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, waysider said:

And who did the grads give it to?

That was the surprising part. No one did anything with it. I checked other areas of the country and it was the same there also. I only found about 2 or 3 people who ran any classes, and that petered out after about ten years.

So now you're comparing yourself to Brother Andrew?

Ok, let's compare me with him. We both have noses.  How's that?

Actually I was looking to compare your (and others') attitudes toward Brother Andrew with your attitudes towards me and VPW.

I think we both agree, Brother Andrew broke some laws. The difference between you and I is that you think we can pick and choose which laws we decide to obey.

.Maybe there should be some government office where we can obtain an official directive of laws to obey.

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[Mike]

23 minutes ago, GoldStar said:

Acts 5:29

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

That's pretty much what I had in mind.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, waysider said:

I think we both agree, Brother Andrew broke some laws.

My question was not did he broke laws, but do you forgive him easily?  Do you expect God to cover for him easily?

GodStar's reference to Peter and the apostles indicates that man's laws are not as sacrosanct as many posters here make them out to be. It's by man's laws that intellectual property is substantial enough to be considered property.   I don't see the teaching of God's Word being something covet-able as property is within ancient Biblical communities nor within rural 1950s Ohio.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Mike

[So_crates]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Has anyone here ever read "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew?

I heard years after reading it that maybe some was not so factual.

But that aside.....  when I read it I felt that he was doing the right thing even though it was against the law.

From posts here am I to believe most here would condemn as against God's moral law not only Brother Andrew, but the American Revolution as well?

There are two great differences between what you did and what Brother Andrew did:

1). Was the information available elsewhere?

By your own admission, PLAF was plaigerized from other sources. Not to mention the ministry was teaching PLAF until 1988. So it was available elsewhere.

Were bibles available elsewhere in the countries Brother Andrew was smuggling them in? I doubt it, otherwise why smuggle?

You know it's see-spot-run PLAF to know that God expects you to use every channel available, then He uses more esoteric methods.

So, people could have read Stiles or take BG Leonards class.

Again, there's no rationalizing or loopholes with God. Stealing is stealing.

 

2). Did Brother Andrew infringe on someone's livelihood?

Were there other bibical salesmen in the countries he was smuggling bibles into?

[So_crates]

12 minutes ago, Mike said:

My question was not did he broke laws, but do you forgive him easily?  Do you expect God to cover for him easily?

Doesn't forgivenesss start with admitting you did wrong? Then attempting to make it right? Anybody can say I'm sorry and not mean it.

Quote

GodStar's reference to Peter and the apostles indicates that man's laws are not as sacrosanct as many posters here make them out to be.

Oh, really? Then why are we told to obey the laws of men?

Like I said earlier, God works in absolutes. You obey or you don't. By your reasoning, what was to stop Christ from running off with all the money in the poor box and saying, "Well, its a law of man, its not sacrosanct, so I'm not really stealing."?

Quote

It's by man's laws that intellectual property is substantial enough to be considered property.   I don't see the teaching of God's Word being something covet-able as property is within ancient Biblical communities nor within rural 1950s Ohio.

Again, we go by what you see. Your not the measure of right or wrong. By doing that your putting yourself above God.

Why don't you ever check what God says?

Edited February 28, 2018 by So_crates

[GoldStar]

Just to clarify...

I posted Peter's statement in Acts because it came to mind...

But of course without man's laws, we would live in a very chaotic world...

The problem is that there are corrupt men who make laws, and thus some laws are corrupt...

And if the laws are not corrupt, there are still corrupt judges who judge non-corrupt laws in a corrupt way....

But we still need laws to have a civil society...

But God's laws are greater in importance and priority, though not in the lives of everyone....

[Twinky]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

Has anyone here ever read "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew?

I heard years after reading it that maybe some was not so factual.

But that aside.....  when I read it I felt that he was doing the right thing even though it was against the law.

From posts here am I to believe most here would condemn as against God's moral law not only Brother Andrew, but the American Revolution as well?

I think you'll find that Bro. Andrew didn't claim that the Bible was his own work.  Therefore, he didn't plagiarise it.  That's what this thread is about: plagiarism.  End of.

[Rocky]

6 hours ago, waysider said:

Mike, it's one think for you to boast you are willing to and have consciously violated what are clearly established laws of the land. That's your choice. To suggest you know what was in the minds of people 50 and 60 years ago is beyond ridiculous. Did these people you are referencing even know Wierwille was stealing this material? I'm pretty sure they didn't, as Wierwille promoted himself as having insider information that hadn't been known for 2,000 years.

 

edit: You do realize, don't you, that you openly admitted to breaking the law.

"It was with great pride that I helped hundreds of other grads in 1988 to smash the copyright grip the Board of Trustees had on our lives and THRUST the film class and books into the public domain WHERE IT BELONGS."

Mike appears to be constructing an elaborate (fictive) scenario hoping to make sense of his specious claims. This construct is in the form of an argument but lacks substance.

Waysider's supposition, that Wierwille's early followers may not even have known or realized VeePee had stolen the material seems more plausible to me.

[Rocky]

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Has anyone here ever read "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew?

I heard years after reading it that maybe some was not so factual.

But that aside.....  when I read it I felt that he was doing the right thing even though it was against the law.

From posts here am I to believe most here would condemn as against God's moral law not only Brother Andrew, but the American Revolution as well?

That sure sounds an awful lot like the logical fallacy, "appeal to authority."

[Rocky]

1 hour ago, GoldStar said:

Just to clarify...

I posted Peter's statement in Acts because it came to mind...

But of course without man's laws, we would live in a very chaotic world...

The problem is that there are corrupt men who make laws, and thus some laws are corrupt...

And if the laws are not corrupt, there are still corrupt judges who judge non-corrupt laws in a corrupt way....

But we still need laws to have a civil society...

But God's laws are greater in importance and priority, though not in the lives of everyone....

Quite true.

Carrying this idea further, Mike has not made any argument that would come close to suggesting Wierwille was obeying God by plagiarizing.