Rutherford's Rainbow

by choosing life 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  choosing life

  I was on Amazon.com today and noticed that they were selling a collection of Rutherford's books on CD. There was also the Watchtower from 1920-1929 and a selection of yearbooks on CD. They were all being sold under the name of Research Applications.

  I am sure the Watchtower would not allow someone to sell their copywrighted material. That makes me wonder if they are trying to benefit from the apostate interest in old literature. They don't sell it at the hall and don't encourage new ones to research their past writings, so who else would they be selling it to?

  Shows their excuse for shutting down Quotes was totally bogus as everyone knew. Has anyone heard of this Reasearch applications and if it belongs to the society?
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  Vernon Williams

  What is at the end of "Rutherford's Rainbow?"

  A pot.....chamber pot.....open lid at your own risk!

  V
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  choosing life

  I just googled Research Applications and it has EVERYTHING from the old publications. I still think they must want to benefit from apostate interest in their literature.
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  choosing life

  Vernon,

  I think the only pot of gold at the end of Rutherford's rainbow was for him. He got his mansion, fancy cars, and all the booze he could manage.
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  Arthur

  I am sure the Watchtower would not allow someone to sell their copywrighted material.

  Actually, I do know of a website that sells CD-ROMS of all of the old pre-1950 publications; including the Watchtowers. The CD-ROMS contain actual scans of all of the pages (not just text like the WT Society's CD-ROM); so when accessing these CD-ROMS, you can actually access all of the photos and graphics that were in the articles as well. Rutheford's Rainbow is one of the collections that is available. This website has been doing this for some time now. Somehow, they have been able to accomplish this without the Society shutting them down.
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  IP_SEC

  Rutherford's rainbow

  Now thats funny!! I've never heard that expression before :D
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  nicolaou

  Pre 1950 publications are considered as 'Public Domain' and exempt from copyright restrictions. It is perfectly legal to produce and sell these CD's - I happen to have all of them from Research Applications.

  However, it would break the copyright of Research Applications to copy their discs. They put a lot of hard work into scanning all that bullshit old light and deserve the money they charge.

  Nic'
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  choosing life

  I didn't know that everything before 1950 was considered public domain. So quotes could have stayed if they didn't quote from material after 1950?
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  MeneMene

  I bought these CDs from freeminds.org - don't believe they are put out by the WTS. I understand the WTS Copyright has expired on these documents. There was a thread discussing copyright several months ago.
  
  Rutherford's Rainbow (2nd Edition also includes The Revelation /1918, The Way to Paradise / 1925 and Angels and Women / 1924)
  
  The Pastor Russell Anthology (38 items - 18,500 pages)
  
  Zion's Watch Tower (1879-1899; 1900-1909; 1910-1919)
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  Nathan Natas

  ChoosingLife, your comment indicates that you don't understand copyright law.

  After a specific period of time - which has varied over the years - a copyright EXPIRES, and when it does, the formerly copyrighted materials become PUBLIC DOMAIN, which means that no one controls the material anymore. Anyone can then republish the public domain documents. When they republish, the copyright on the ORIGINAL material is still expired, but a new copyright on the specific new expression of that old work comes into being. Because of this you can have 100 new "expressions" of Rutherford's Rainbow and each specific expression will be protected from piracy by the law.

  You can purchase your own copies of the original books and scan them and create your own expression of them, or you can compensate someone else for the time and expense they incurred in doing it for you.

  ...by the way, the comment about the 1950 cutoff date is NOT correct. Anything printed before 1921 is now in the public domain, and SOME later publications MAY be in the public domain, IF their copyrights were not renewed. Publications that were renewed have copyright protection until 95 years after the date of publication.

  We can thank US Representative Sonny Bono of "Sonny & Cher" for the ridiculous state of American copyright law today.