In 1978 I paid $100 for the class and got pfal, rthst and collaterals. By 79 or 80 it was $200 for the same stuff. Did the costs really double?
Then the feds stepped in and twi changed its tune.
When I got out. it was $40 for the book and syllabus and the collaterals were extra. At no time did I ever get a way book for free.
We were all encouraged to buy the hardcover versions of the paperbacks we had already received.
And Mike, why don't you go ahead and publish pfal without permission, and for good measure, claim it as your own and see how far the lawyers from twi chase you.
If you'd been reading my posts on the thread titled "New TWI Website" in the About the Way forum you'd know that it's my heart's desire to reconcile with TWI and get down to serious study of PFAL with them.
I feel the same way about you and all the posters here.
I have no intention of antagonizing them over copyrights.
By the Way, just a few months ago TWI opened their bookstore back up for us, so the need to self publish (or re-publish) the PFAL writings has gone way down.
I'm not an answer man for all things general. I hardly know anything about Armstrong.
I do know that what Dr did with his teachers' material benefited us all greatly, and it hurt no one.
In my own personal ethics I do my best to hurt no one.
I do not have the desire, the time, the data, the brains, or the authority to make judgement calls on each and every scenario, factual or fantasy, that you can throw at me in this debate.
I do look at the laws of man with respect, and I try to determine in my following of them what the overall gist is, not the persnickity lawyer-like details.
Dr was up-front and honest about naming his sources. The fact that you plagiarism vigliantees didn't way back then follow up on Dr's citations and find these details that now bug you is a testament to how sloppy you were when being first taught PFAL.
This also testifies to the treasures you will find when you come back to PFAL.
If you take the energy and resources you now are devoting to defeating me and my message and focus that brain power on the contents of PFAL instead of it's periphery, then you will see much that you missed the first time you were in this Word.
The treasures you will find will be great when you come back to PFAL and begin again the great adventure in learning God has called you to.
I cannot find the exact figures but I distinctly remember learning during the 80s that the cost to TWI was under a dollar per book. The price was set high cuz of "percieved value", doncha know? If vp let em sell the books for $2.50 or $3.50 a pop, they wouldn't be taken "seriously", doncha know....
I'm not an answer man for all things general. I hardly know anything about Armstrong.
I do know that what Dr did with his teachers' material benefited us all greatly, and it hurt no one.
In my own personal ethics I do my best to hurt no one.
I do not have the desire, the time, the data, the brains, or the authority to make judgement calls on each and every scenario, factual or fantasy, that you can throw at me in this debate.
I do look at the laws of man with respect, and I try to determine in my following of them what the overall gist is, not the persnickity lawyer-like details.
Dr was up-front and honest about naming his sources. The fact that you plagiarism vigliantees didn't way back then follow up on Dr's citations and find these details that now bug you is a testament to how sloppy you were when being first taught PFAL.
This also testifies to the treasures you will find when you come back to PFAL.
If you take the energy and resources you now are devoting to defeating me and my message and focus that brain power on the contents of PFAL instead of it's periphery, then you will see much that you missed the first time you were in this Word.
The treasures you will find will be great when you come back to PFAL and begin again the great adventure in learning God has called you to.
That doesn't answer the question Mike, what if Armstrong was right and vpw wrong? Maybe we all have wasted our lives with another broken cistern.
Mike you and I can be friends for as long as you want. You make such outrageous statements that it is hard to take your seriously. If you want to believe pfal like you do, fine. But many of us have gone elsewhere.
It may be a good book, but it is no better than any other book written by a man who claimed inspiration from God. It is after all, a dictation of the film class as were most the collaterals which came from SNS tapes.
I can't see the lofty status you give it, especially when its author never placed it there.
"Mike" doesn't give a tinker's toot about what Armstrong or anybody else has done.
Even though Wierwille put his writings in the same catagory as those of other human writers, right there in the PFAL book, "Mike" twists the plain meanings of the words, and the plain grammar, to "Some that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed."
Dr was up-front and honest about naming his sources.
No, he mentioned several people that he had "learned" from. When is J.E. Stiles ever mentioned, other than as the man who led him into tongues in Tulsa right after the "snowstorm"?
quote:The fact that you plagiarism vigliantees didn't way back then follow up on Dr's citations and find these details that now bug you is a testament to how sloppy you were when being first taught PFAL.
If he had honestly and upfrontly had citations to follow up on, maybe we would have done it then, but we're doing it now, so what? The people who did do it back then LEFT back then.
quote: Hey everyone, raise your hand if TWI gave you free copies of all the books? Raise your hand if ALL you paid was production cost: no profit to TWI.
-AND-
Book production does not cost what was charged for those books. You're talking to a former JW. If you want to see people who sell books at cost, no profit, look at them. You'll see that TWI made quite a sum on its "non-marketplace" books.
-AND-
Let me retract that: if anyone knows for a fact what the production costs are for a PFAL book v. the selling price, please let us know. I don't trust Mike to tell the truth on this, and I don't have firsthand knowledge on this. So if you do, settle this. If no one comes forward I'll consider it moot.
I don't know what TWI currently charges for the hard cover books (especially since PFAL is not in their current line up but Martindale's WAP) but the price is printed on the book liner of the copies I have. The hard copy of RTHST is priced at: $5.95 (the sixth edition, not sure when that edition was released). JCING is $6.95 (which is the second impression that was printed in 1983). I am missing the liners from the collaterals BTMS, TWW, GMW, etc. but I know those books did not cost more than JCING and had the prices printed on the liners. Those books were right around $4.95 each as I recall.
Even if these prices are still the prices from the 1980's, I would be hard pressed to believe there was a tremendous profit margin or markup on any of these books. (You also got to figure in labor costs, overhead and administration costs too - not just material costs.) Most hard cover books printed 10 years ago ran around $23.00 to $27.00 retail at your local book store - that's for books around 200 pages or so. The PFAL collaterals are about the same length (number of pages) or longer. Of course, the price of the book all depends on the publisher ultimately and what it costs them to bring the book to market.
Get real Raf. The biggest "cash cow" for TWI was people's weekly ABS at a minimum of 10% (or 15% if you really wanted to be blessed) not any of the books/class/materials sold by TWI. But nobody's here is arguing the point ABS was plagarized by TWI - or are they? - BUT WAIT - didn't the Mormon's come up with that whole idea first? Perhaps they'll file a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI for plagarizing and capitalizing on their tithing idea. But other churches also practice tithing and they haven't been sued by the Mormon's - as far as I know they haven't ever sued anyone over tithing.
As much as I can find fault with TWI's practices, I find the plagarizing accusation to be nothing more than TWI's critics "straining over a gnat". Even if VPW had given all the proper credit due to all the other writers, his critics would still argue his books were plagarized simply because he failed to credit the woodsmen who cut the trees to produce the paper in order to print them. The critics won't stop at anything to try to make their "plagarism" point stick - as ridiculous as it already is. By their "daffynition" of what they believe plagarism is, anyone who ever wrote a book could be called a "plagarist" simply because no book ever written has credited a papermill that produced the materials to make a book.
Just for the record, none of the "other writers" (that VPW supposedly plagarized from) books sold very well in the open marketplace. The only exception here might be unless you happened to be a "geeky scholar" or a real square peg that found a unique fascination with extremely dry reading material. Could there have been any squarer peg or geekier scholar than VPW? Well that's a whole different arguement, isn't it?
There wouldn't be a plagarizm accusation against VPW except for the fact he popularized the "other writers" written works. All that VPW and TWI did was give their book sales a tremendous boost! After all, I bought their books too (and I blame VPW and TWI for that) but I still haven't seen any of their publishers bring a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI. I don't recall they ever gave VPW/TWI any credit for popularizing their dry readin' material. Perhaps they decided to call it even/steven instead of filing a copyright infringment suit against TWI - right? With all the other lawsuits that may be pending against TWI, the "other book publishers" sure aren't scrambling here. Ask yourself - why?
I don't know what TWI currently charges for the hard cover books (especially since PFAL is not in their current line up but Martindale's WAP) but the price is printed on the book liner of the copies I have. The hard copy of RTHST is priced at: $5.95 (the sixth edition, not sure when that edition was released). JCING is $6.95 (which is the second impression that was printed in 1983). I am missing the liners from the collaterals BTMS, TWW, GMW, etc. but I know those books did not cost more than JCING and had the prices printed on the liners. Those books were right around $4.95 each as I recall.
Even if these prices are still the prices from the 1980's, I would be hard pressed to believe there was a tremendous profit margin or markup on any of these books. (You also got to figure in labor costs, overhead and administration costs too - not just material costs.) Most hard cover books printed 10 years ago ran around $23.00 to $27.00 retail at your local book store - that's for books around 200 pages or so. The PFAL collaterals are about the same length (number of pages) or longer. Of course, the price of the book all depends on the publisher ultimately.
[Thank you for PROVING there was a tremendous markup. First of all, textbooks back then around $20-25, RETAIL. What did you get for that? About 300-400 pages, 8 1/2 x 11. Do you know how long it takes to finish reading a textbook? I bought "Constantine's Cross", a small textbook, the other month, for less than $20. It takes a few WEEKS to do a SINGLE read-through of the book. It's easily 4-5 times the content of the Orange Book, which was all text. That was "retail at my local book-store." Put together the Orange, White AND Blue books and you STILL don't get close to the amount of text included.
Even if it DID, you proved Raf's point in that we paid
RETAIL. That means that we paid the cost of the writers, the printers, the distribution company, and the bookseller. That's "retail".
What were the expenses for, say, the Orange Book? There was the "writer"-supposedly original, and the "editing" staff. There was the printing costs. And there was distribution. So, we were charged a fee for the writer, who supposedly wasn't in it for the money. We were charged for the editors, who didn't see a cut. We were charged for the printing, when that was done in-house, and we were charged for "distribution", which had NO "trucking" expenses and so on. Bookstaff worked for FREE on a volunteer basis.
So, in other words, a small percentage of what we were charged was the "costs" of the book, and the rest was PROFIT for twi. ]
Get real Raf. The biggest "cash cow" for TWI was people's weekly ABS at a minimum of 10% (or 15% if you really wanted to be blessed) not any of the books/class/materials sold by TWI.
[Yes. We object to vpw KNOWING that tithing was wrong-he initially taught it was wrong- then turning around and hypocritically demanding it of his "followers", AND requiring they buy his book on how it was required. We also object to how we were urged to give MORE than that, with invented terms like "abundant sharing" and "plurality giving"-that a perversion of something done in Acts. We object to the poor "stewardship" of that money. Instead of even SOME of it going to serve LOCAL NEEDS of Christians, it went to snowmobiles for the mog, luxury travel and AIRPLANES for the mog, motorcycles for the mog, cigarattes and drambuie for the mog, and an auditorium so wildly lavish that it looks like it belongs in Las Vegas. This all being done while the way corpse slept in walk-in closets and kitbashed RVs. That shows where the priorities were/are.]
But nobody's here is arguing the point ABS was plagarized by TWI - or are they? - BUT WAIT - didn't the Mormon's come up with that whole idea first? Perhaps they'll file a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI for plagarizing and capitalizing on their tithing idea. But other churches also practice tithing and they haven't been sued by the Mormon's yet.
[Plagiarism has nothing to do with poor stewardship and simony, you moron. How could you POSSIBLY connect one with the other?]
As much as I can currently find fault with TWI, I find the plagarizing issue to be nothing more than TWI's critics merely "straining at
a gnat".
If VPW had given all the credit due to all the other writers, his critics would still argue his books were plagarized simply because he failed to credit the woodsmen who cut the trees to produce the paper in order to print them.
[if I thought you actually misunderstood how plagiarism works, and how citation works, I would direct you to page one of this thread, where the links explain what was done, why it was wrong, and what SHOULD have been done. Since it is obvious that all you are doing is deliberately lying-knowing that's NOT what we say, but claiming we say it anyway- I find it deceitful and evil. You yourself posted a link to logical fallacies. Amazing you didn't read them-or REFUSE TO DISCUSS FAIRLY AND AVOID THEM, otherwise you wouldn't be using the Strawman and similar gambits.
Then again, maybe Steve Lortz figured this one out long ago.]
The critics won't stop at anything to try to make their point stick - as ridiculous as it already is.
[To any observer with a shred of fairness and objectivity, these are reasonable. Try them in a court of law and see how far you get. Fraud is a felony, you know. ]
Just for the record, none of the "other writers" (that VPW supposedly plagarized from) books sold very well in the open marketplace.
[And? There is no exemption for "poor sales" to plagiarism, citation, honesty OR integrity. To suggest there IS one reveals something of your OWN level of honesty and integrity.]
The only exception might be unless you happened to be a "geeky scholar" or a real square peg that found a unique fascination with extremely dry reading material. (Could there have been any squarer peg or geekier scholar than VP? Well that's a whole different arguement now, isn't it?)
There would be no plagarizm accusation against VPW except for the fact VPW had popularized the "other writers" written works.
[it would have been illegal, immoral AND dishonest no matter how sales went. Go back to page one and obtain a basic understanding of plagiarism, citations, and what they have to do with integrity.]
VPW and TWI most likely gave their book sales a tremendous sales boost.
[Which does not excuse plagiarism, even if that had been vpw's intent, which it obviously was NOT. Page 1, this thread, what plagiarism is, what citation is, why citation is important. ]
After all, I bought many of their books too, but I still haven't seen any of their publishers bring a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI.
[i've never gotten bored enough to tell major publishing houses that a little religious group on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Ohio has, in the distant past, violated their copyrights, only to here them reply "let us know if they do it in the present". Perhaps I will this summer. Feel free to let them know yourselves. BG Leonard himself considered it wrong, but elected not to bring a lawsuit, instead adding extensive copyright information on his later books.]
But then, I don't recall that they ever gave VPW/TWI any _credit_ for popularizing their dry readin' material, so maybe they decided to call it even/steven - right?
[Wrong. For a detailed explanation why, click on the links on page 1 of this thread.....]
Your boldfaced stance does not indicate you understand the copyright law - specifically copyright in regards to fair use. Your links on p.1 of this thread regarding copyright is from the University of Indiana - from academia.
Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, or methods of operation, but can protect the way these things are expressed. Ideas and discoveries are not protected by copyright. Your objection (charge of plagarism) is based on the manner in which VPW cited his sources and his failure to protect the way in which those things were expressed in his written works.
If research and/or teaching was NOT the "PURPOSE AND CHARACTER OF THE USE" in producing those written works (rather profit) then truly charges of plagarism would rightfully apply.
However research is not an infringement of copyright. Purposes of criticsm, comment, news reporting, teaching, research all fall under the fair use clause of section 107 title 17 of the copyright law. According to title 17 section 107 what constitutes fair use:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Parts 3 and 4 are perhaps the most debatable parts of the fair use law, specifically whether or not VPW / TWI might have perhaps crossed the line in the fair use clause.
TWI has publically positioned and presented itself as a non-profit, educational, research and teaching organization. That should come as no surprise to anyone who was ever involved in TWI. The "purpose and character of the use" of the PFAL series of books/collaterals were primarily meant for education/research reasons and not for profit. As such, those materials would qualify under fair use.
The points the critics want to bring up are parts: (3) - questions regarding "the substatiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market. Did sales of the "other writers" books fail (or fall) because of the PFAL series of books? But for the most part we're "begging the question" here. Just another "logical fallacy" so it would appear.
What The Hay's analysis of copyright law is correct, but sorely misapplied.
Writing for a non-profit publication does not absolve one of the need for proper attibution.
A comparison of Question 8 in Receiving the Holy Spirit Today to the corresponding Question 8 in the JE Stiles book shows quite clearly that this was not the mere repeating of an idea, but outright plagiarism (by any legal standard: I can't convince you or Mike that God, who is infinitely wise, does not need to order a man to commit plagiarism to get His point across, but at the very least I can show that Wierwille's plagiarisms are in no way covered by the "fair use" provisions in copyright law).
Note, I said "Wierwille's plagiarisms" are not covered. I did not say everything Wierwille has been accused of is plagiarism. Getting an idea from somewhere and repeating it is not always plagiarism (it sometimes is).
quote:Get real Raf. The biggest "cash cow" for TWI was people's weekly ABS at a minimum of 10% (or 15% if you really wanted to be blessed) not any of the books/class/materials sold by TWI.
When did I say it wasn't?
By the way, if you think the classes didn't make TWI a significant amount of money, you're out of your bloomin mind. 100,000 people taking PFAL at $50 (avg) is $5 million right there. Not bad. Add to that the number taking the intermediate class and other advanced studies, and I'm figuring TWI pulled in a pretty penny on classes.
quote:VPW and TWI most likely gave their book sales a tremendous sales boost.
Here's what gets me. I thought VPW didn't cite the other authors because he didn't want to distract us from the content and then send us off to buy the other books. THEN the argument switches to "the other books would not have sold as well without VPW" (which, incidentally, is a charge I'd like you to prove, but I know you can't, first because it's false, and second because you won't try).
Hey, which is it? He wanted us to buy the other books and get them their fair money, or he didn't want to distract us by leading us to his original but flawed sources.
quote: Hey, which is it? He wanted us to buy the other books and get them their fair money, or he didn't want to distract us by leading us to his original but flawed sources.
I never said VPW specifically wanted you to buy the other writers books. But VPW DID insist his students didn't just take his word at face value. He always encouraged his students to "check things out" for themselves. Now the recommendation by VPW to "check things out" may or may not have lead to someone purchasing those other writers books, but the indication to do so may have certainly been there.
As "The Teacher", VPW strongly encouraged his students to do their own biblical research. He never said to his students, "Just trust me on this" and left it at that. You know - just take it by faith brother. [boy how things have changed in TWI since then. Someone 'doing their own biblical research' is now strongly discouraged where at one time it was highly encouraged?]
An author of a work has exclusive rights and limitations in regard to copyright. It's a common misconception an author has only exclusive rights. It's because of this the distiction between fair use and infringement is not clear and easily defined I believe - it's not always cut and dry, especially when the copyright law is always being amended. For example, there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that can be safely taken without one obtaining permission, and that also plays a great part on the limitation of "fair use". Obtaining permission takes precedent over acknowledging the source of a work. Merely acknowledging (or citing) sources of a work does not substitute for obtaining permission.
Did VPW obtain permission from those authors? I can't specifically say yes or no, but if not, why would he strongly encourage his biblical research students to check things out for themselves if he had something to hide? But two different biblical scholars who are writing and quoting the exact same verse of scripture in their own work hardly qualifies as one scholar infringing upon the other scholar's copyright.
Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. There is too much of VPW expressing himself in PFAL and as well as the PFAL collaterals for someone to be confused if it were really VPW or maybe perhaps "some other author" who wrote PFAL. But then again with Mike's mastery of PFAL, who could tell otherwise? :D-->
When VPW said check things out, I think he meant compare them to the Bible, not "go find the books I'm referring to without telling you what they are."
I agree with your statement that there's plenty in PFAL that is not plagiarized. Can you agree that there's plenty in PFAL that was? In other words, there's plenty in the work of VPW that is not merely the restating of another's idea, but the deliberate re-use of others' expression of those ideas, without attribution? Can you honestly compare the question 8's and say that this was Wierwille's original expression?
quote:I never said VPW specifically wanted you to buy the other writers books.
Statement 2:
quote:There wouldn't be a plagarizm accusation against VPW except for the fact he popularized the "other writers" written works. All that VPW and TWI did was give their book sales a tremendous boost!
Statement 1 makes statement 2 utterly irrelevant as a justification for plagiarism (for which, by the way, you have made a better case than we).
To say Wierwille "popularized" Kenyon is to show that you knew neither man.
there was a sportswriter who got booted from the superbowl this week and fired... his crime? he "borrowed" a column, he did change eight or ten words...
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WordWolf
I'll interrupt my queue once more to pose what I think is a salient question.
Mike?
Herbert Armstrong claimed to be God's spokesman for his day and time.
Herbert Armstrong claimed to receive special revelation from God that was the
source of what he taught. In reality, Herbert Armstrong used other men's works
and claimed he did not, despite in some cases plagiarizing them word-for-word
rather than concept-for-concept.
Here's the question.
Was it wrong for Herbert Armstrong to plagiarize the works of other men of God
and then claim that God revealed this material to him by Divine Revelation?
Again,
Was it wrong for Herbert Armstrong to plagiarize the works of other men of God
and then claim that God revealed this material to him by Divine Revelation?
If it was NOT wrong, WHY was it not wrong?
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def59
In 1978 I paid $100 for the class and got pfal, rthst and collaterals. By 79 or 80 it was $200 for the same stuff. Did the costs really double?
Then the feds stepped in and twi changed its tune.
When I got out. it was $40 for the book and syllabus and the collaterals were extra. At no time did I ever get a way book for free.
We were all encouraged to buy the hardcover versions of the paperbacks we had already received.
And Mike, why don't you go ahead and publish pfal without permission, and for good measure, claim it as your own and see how far the lawyers from twi chase you.
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Mike
def59,
If you'd been reading my posts on the thread titled "New TWI Website" in the About the Way forum you'd know that it's my heart's desire to reconcile with TWI and get down to serious study of PFAL with them.
I feel the same way about you and all the posters here.
I have no intention of antagonizing them over copyrights.
By the Way, just a few months ago TWI opened their bookstore back up for us, so the need to self publish (or re-publish) the PFAL writings has gone way down.
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Mike
WW,
I'm not an answer man for all things general. I hardly know anything about Armstrong.
I do know that what Dr did with his teachers' material benefited us all greatly, and it hurt no one.
In my own personal ethics I do my best to hurt no one.
I do not have the desire, the time, the data, the brains, or the authority to make judgement calls on each and every scenario, factual or fantasy, that you can throw at me in this debate.
I do look at the laws of man with respect, and I try to determine in my following of them what the overall gist is, not the persnickity lawyer-like details.
Dr was up-front and honest about naming his sources. The fact that you plagiarism vigliantees didn't way back then follow up on Dr's citations and find these details that now bug you is a testament to how sloppy you were when being first taught PFAL.
This also testifies to the treasures you will find when you come back to PFAL.
If you take the energy and resources you now are devoting to defeating me and my message and focus that brain power on the contents of PFAL instead of it's periphery, then you will see much that you missed the first time you were in this Word.
The treasures you will find will be great when you come back to PFAL and begin again the great adventure in learning God has called you to.
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alfakat
I cannot find the exact figures but I distinctly remember learning during the 80s that the cost to TWI was under a dollar per book. The price was set high cuz of "percieved value", doncha know? If vp let em sell the books for $2.50 or $3.50 a pop, they wouldn't be taken "seriously", doncha know....
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def59
That doesn't answer the question Mike, what if Armstrong was right and vpw wrong? Maybe we all have wasted our lives with another broken cistern.
Mike you and I can be friends for as long as you want. You make such outrageous statements that it is hard to take your seriously. If you want to believe pfal like you do, fine. But many of us have gone elsewhere.
It may be a good book, but it is no better than any other book written by a man who claimed inspiration from God. It is after all, a dictation of the film class as were most the collaterals which came from SNS tapes.
I can't see the lofty status you give it, especially when its author never placed it there.
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Steve Lortz
"Mike" doesn't give a tinker's toot about what Armstrong or anybody else has done.
Even though Wierwille put his writings in the same catagory as those of other human writers, right there in the PFAL book, "Mike" twists the plain meanings of the words, and the plain grammar, to "Some that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed."
"Mike" can't even get PFAL right.
Love,
Steve
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Tom Strange
guys! don't you remember? TWI never charged any of us one thin dime for anything we ever got from them!
...the materials were free... we made donations!
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Oakspear
Sloppy? More like naive and gullible.
:D-->
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def59
Mike is a ultra-orthodox pffilite. He should start his own church.
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What The Hay
I don't know what TWI currently charges for the hard cover books (especially since PFAL is not in their current line up but Martindale's WAP) but the price is printed on the book liner of the copies I have. The hard copy of RTHST is priced at: $5.95 (the sixth edition, not sure when that edition was released). JCING is $6.95 (which is the second impression that was printed in 1983). I am missing the liners from the collaterals BTMS, TWW, GMW, etc. but I know those books did not cost more than JCING and had the prices printed on the liners. Those books were right around $4.95 each as I recall.
Even if these prices are still the prices from the 1980's, I would be hard pressed to believe there was a tremendous profit margin or markup on any of these books. (You also got to figure in labor costs, overhead and administration costs too - not just material costs.) Most hard cover books printed 10 years ago ran around $23.00 to $27.00 retail at your local book store - that's for books around 200 pages or so. The PFAL collaterals are about the same length (number of pages) or longer. Of course, the price of the book all depends on the publisher ultimately and what it costs them to bring the book to market.
Get real Raf. The biggest "cash cow" for TWI was people's weekly ABS at a minimum of 10% (or 15% if you really wanted to be blessed) not any of the books/class/materials sold by TWI. But nobody's here is arguing the point ABS was plagarized by TWI - or are they? - BUT WAIT - didn't the Mormon's come up with that whole idea first? Perhaps they'll file a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI for plagarizing and capitalizing on their tithing idea. But other churches also practice tithing and they haven't been sued by the Mormon's - as far as I know they haven't ever sued anyone over tithing.
As much as I can find fault with TWI's practices, I find the plagarizing accusation to be nothing more than TWI's critics "straining over a gnat". Even if VPW had given all the proper credit due to all the other writers, his critics would still argue his books were plagarized simply because he failed to credit the woodsmen who cut the trees to produce the paper in order to print them. The critics won't stop at anything to try to make their "plagarism" point stick - as ridiculous as it already is. By their "daffynition" of what they believe plagarism is, anyone who ever wrote a book could be called a "plagarist" simply because no book ever written has credited a papermill that produced the materials to make a book.
Just for the record, none of the "other writers" (that VPW supposedly plagarized from) books sold very well in the open marketplace. The only exception here might be unless you happened to be a "geeky scholar" or a real square peg that found a unique fascination with extremely dry reading material. Could there have been any squarer peg or geekier scholar than VPW? Well that's a whole different arguement, isn't it?
There wouldn't be a plagarizm accusation against VPW except for the fact he popularized the "other writers" written works. All that VPW and TWI did was give their book sales a tremendous boost! After all, I bought their books too (and I blame VPW and TWI for that) but I still haven't seen any of their publishers bring a copyright infringment lawsuit against TWI. I don't recall they ever gave VPW/TWI any credit for popularizing their dry readin' material. Perhaps they decided to call it even/steven instead of filing a copyright infringment suit against TWI - right? With all the other lawsuits that may be pending against TWI, the "other book publishers" sure aren't scrambling here. Ask yourself - why?
Edited by what.the.hay!Link to comment
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WordWolf
WTH posts the original,
[WordWolf responds in boldface.]
[Wrong. For a detailed explanation why, click on the links on page 1 of this thread.....]
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What The Hay
Your boldfaced stance does not indicate you understand the copyright law - specifically copyright in regards to fair use. Your links on p.1 of this thread regarding copyright is from the University of Indiana - from academia.
Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, or methods of operation, but can protect the way these things are expressed. Ideas and discoveries are not protected by copyright. Your objection (charge of plagarism) is based on the manner in which VPW cited his sources and his failure to protect the way in which those things were expressed in his written works.
If research and/or teaching was NOT the "PURPOSE AND CHARACTER OF THE USE" in producing those written works (rather profit) then truly charges of plagarism would rightfully apply.
However research is not an infringement of copyright. Purposes of criticsm, comment, news reporting, teaching, research all fall under the fair use clause of section 107 title 17 of the copyright law. According to title 17 section 107 what constitutes fair use:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Parts 3 and 4 are perhaps the most debatable parts of the fair use law, specifically whether or not VPW / TWI might have perhaps crossed the line in the fair use clause.
TWI has publically positioned and presented itself as a non-profit, educational, research and teaching organization. That should come as no surprise to anyone who was ever involved in TWI. The "purpose and character of the use" of the PFAL series of books/collaterals were primarily meant for education/research reasons and not for profit. As such, those materials would qualify under fair use.
The points the critics want to bring up are parts: (3) - questions regarding "the substatiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market. Did sales of the "other writers" books fail (or fall) because of the PFAL series of books? But for the most part we're "begging the question" here. Just another "logical fallacy" so it would appear.
Begging the question.
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Raf
What The Hay's analysis of copyright law is correct, but sorely misapplied.
Writing for a non-profit publication does not absolve one of the need for proper attibution.
A comparison of Question 8 in Receiving the Holy Spirit Today to the corresponding Question 8 in the JE Stiles book shows quite clearly that this was not the mere repeating of an idea, but outright plagiarism (by any legal standard: I can't convince you or Mike that God, who is infinitely wise, does not need to order a man to commit plagiarism to get His point across, but at the very least I can show that Wierwille's plagiarisms are in no way covered by the "fair use" provisions in copyright law).
Note, I said "Wierwille's plagiarisms" are not covered. I did not say everything Wierwille has been accused of is plagiarism. Getting an idea from somewhere and repeating it is not always plagiarism (it sometimes is).
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Raf
When did I say it wasn't?
By the way, if you think the classes didn't make TWI a significant amount of money, you're out of your bloomin mind. 100,000 people taking PFAL at $50 (avg) is $5 million right there. Not bad. Add to that the number taking the intermediate class and other advanced studies, and I'm figuring TWI pulled in a pretty penny on classes.
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Raf
Here's what gets me. I thought VPW didn't cite the other authors because he didn't want to distract us from the content and then send us off to buy the other books. THEN the argument switches to "the other books would not have sold as well without VPW" (which, incidentally, is a charge I'd like you to prove, but I know you can't, first because it's false, and second because you won't try).
Hey, which is it? He wanted us to buy the other books and get them their fair money, or he didn't want to distract us by leading us to his original but flawed sources.
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def59
When I worked at Kinko's we were allowed to make 1 copy of 1 page of any book. More than that and we would be in violation of the copyright laws.
People love to copy whole books, that's cheating the author or copyright holder out of profits they rightfully deserve.
Copyright laws protect people from those who copy and steal their work.
What vpw did with his thefts of stiles' work is inexcusable.
But pastors are being busted for using sermons they did not originate, and not giving credit.
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What The Hay
I never said VPW specifically wanted you to buy the other writers books. But VPW DID insist his students didn't just take his word at face value. He always encouraged his students to "check things out" for themselves. Now the recommendation by VPW to "check things out" may or may not have lead to someone purchasing those other writers books, but the indication to do so may have certainly been there.
As "The Teacher", VPW strongly encouraged his students to do their own biblical research. He never said to his students, "Just trust me on this" and left it at that. You know - just take it by faith brother. [boy how things have changed in TWI since then. Someone 'doing their own biblical research' is now strongly discouraged where at one time it was highly encouraged?]
An author of a work has exclusive rights and limitations in regard to copyright. It's a common misconception an author has only exclusive rights. It's because of this the distiction between fair use and infringement is not clear and easily defined I believe - it's not always cut and dry, especially when the copyright law is always being amended. For example, there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that can be safely taken without one obtaining permission, and that also plays a great part on the limitation of "fair use". Obtaining permission takes precedent over acknowledging the source of a work. Merely acknowledging (or citing) sources of a work does not substitute for obtaining permission.
Did VPW obtain permission from those authors? I can't specifically say yes or no, but if not, why would he strongly encourage his biblical research students to check things out for themselves if he had something to hide? But two different biblical scholars who are writing and quoting the exact same verse of scripture in their own work hardly qualifies as one scholar infringing upon the other scholar's copyright.
Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. There is too much of VPW expressing himself in PFAL and as well as the PFAL collaterals for someone to be confused if it were really VPW or maybe perhaps "some other author" who wrote PFAL. But then again with Mike's mastery of PFAL, who could tell otherwise?
:D-->
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Raf
When VPW said check things out, I think he meant compare them to the Bible, not "go find the books I'm referring to without telling you what they are."
I agree with your statement that there's plenty in PFAL that is not plagiarized. Can you agree that there's plenty in PFAL that was? In other words, there's plenty in the work of VPW that is not merely the restating of another's idea, but the deliberate re-use of others' expression of those ideas, without attribution? Can you honestly compare the question 8's and say that this was Wierwille's original expression?
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Raf
Statement 1:
Statement 2:
Statement 1 makes statement 2 utterly irrelevant as a justification for plagiarism (for which, by the way, you have made a better case than we).
To say Wierwille "popularized" Kenyon is to show that you knew neither man.
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def59
Check out this site. It proves Raf's point about Question 8.
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml
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Tom Strange
there was a sportswriter who got booted from the superbowl this week and fired... his crime? he "borrowed" a column, he did change eight or ten words...
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Oakspear
Wierwille wanted us to "check it out" for ourselves, sure, but armed with off-beat definitions and assumptions.
What happened to those with dissenting "research"? Shown the door.
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WordWolf
Thanks for illustrating how we were charged retail for what was supposedly
something specifically for our benefit, and NOT a revenue-generating-source
for twi.
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