"Publisher" according to the California State Board of Equalization

by VM44 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  VM44

  The California State Board of Equalization (the taxation department) defines the word "Publisher" in the following manner.

  "Publisher" means and includes any person who owns the rights to produce, market, and distribute printed literature and information.

  This is probably standard legal definition of the word and so we now know why The Watchtower Corporation chose it to describe the activities of the Witnesses as they go door to door. It is not to preach, but rather to distribute literature!

  The Witnesses's are nothing more than literature distributers and they didn't even know it!
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  VM44

  Charles Russell was more honest when he called the distributers of his books "Colporters."

  Colporteur \Col"por`teur\ (?; 277), n. [F. colporteur one who
  carries on his neck, fr. colporter to carry on one's neck;
  col (L. collum) neck + porter (L. portare) to carry.]
  A hawker; specifically, one who travels about selling and
  distributing religious tracts and books.
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  slimboyfat

  I think they chose it because the NWT in the book of Acts talks about "publishing the good news". One who publishes the good news is a "publisher", I suppose was the thinking.

  I wonder if my theory is right. If so I would suspect that the term probably started being used by the Witnesses around the time the NWT of the Christian Greek Scriptures was released in 1950. Although it is also certainly possible that pre-existing Witness useage of the term influenced Fred Franz's translation in Acts I suppose.
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  loosie

  does this mean that publishers can be taxed?
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  WTWizard

  When I was in, I was puzzled at first about why we were called "publishers". A publisher is one that is involved in distributing and printing literature, not one that spreads news. Hopefully, things like this will get the Washtowel Slaveholdery to be more accountable to standard definitions of the words, plus make it more difficult to alter the definitions of words to carry on their wasteful activities.

  The witlesses are indeed soliciting and peddling, whether they call it that or not.
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  llbh

  Very interesting VM , the more i think the way the wts reasons the more obvious if becomes that the way that they reason is full of holes.

  David
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  MissingLink

  This means they should NOT be hassled by the borg for copyright issues when they make personal copies of CDs and post magazines on the internet. As a "publisher" you own the rights to the material.