Examining the Scriptures Daily
Interesting.
Watchtower threatens to sue their own
by blond-moment 32 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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breakfast of champions
Nah. There's no way it's a cult.
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JonathanH
That's not very smart on their part. It seems like a pretty innocuous site, it doesn't editorialize or have a chat area, it was just a site where you could access the daily text online. The society's demand that it be taken down or they will sue the site owners didn't benefit them in any way. Because of that we've added a person or two more to our ranks, and the site owners may have planted some seeds of doubt in whatever reader base they may have had with their farewell parting shot. The society's legalistic ways are only going to hurt them going forward, and it's only going to hurt them in the industrialized nations that pay their bills. You can only clamp down so hard before the majority say "fuck you" and leave.
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biometrics
If their works are truly 100% "Bible based" then they have no legal claim to copyright, as it's not a creative work, but based on effort. This is especially true for the New World Translation.
Also, the fact they don't name authors could also be used against them in any copyright case.
I suspect there is a huge element of creative license used in all Watchtower literature?
I think as the Watchtower moves more to online (e.g. reduced print, more downloads), their legal department will be seeking out sites for copyright infringement cases in an effort to reduce search engine competition, and eliminate apostate sites.
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jwfacts
It is ironic that the literature is free, and they want to distribute it to "all the inhabited earth", yet put copyright on it. If the Watchtower truly wanted their information out their it should be under creative commons license and available for free distribution. In the case mentioned here, the website was fully supportive of the Watchtower, so was a tremendous "witness" to the religion and an effect way of preaching and upbuilding. The Governing Body really have lost the plot, allowing legal concerns to be of more importance than Spiritual ones.
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Listener
There is no threat to sue in the letter written, rather it pointed out that what they were doing was illegal.
Putting a copyright on the bible is shocking.
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biometrics
@jwfacts
It's about control, not about whether or not the said site is supportive of the Watchtower. Imagine that site had thousands of JW daily visitors, then the site's owner (for whatever reason) decided that he/she is no longer going to support Watchtower teachings. The owner could slip in a few "Apostate" teachings, that could damage the Watchtower's business interests.
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steve2
Have They Really Threatened to Sue Their Own?
Just to clarify: Is the blog that attracted the letter from the Watchtower's legal department really pro-JWs? The reason I ask is because the commentary on the blog in response to the legal department letter springboards smoothly onto other instances of the Watchtower legal department's gagging of other issues, including child abuse.
The blog commentary reads like an extended treatise against the Watchtower on a host of issues - not just copyright. There's nothing "wrong" with this, but to then protest that they are pro-JW is a bit rich. If they were genuinely pro-JW and not out to call the Watchtower to account, wouldn't they have endeavoured to sort the matter out in private correspondence with the Watchtower?Why create further waves when presumably your beef is copyright?
The commentary creates the impression that the blog site is not as wholeheartedly pro-JW as it claims to be.
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blond-moment
I didn't frequent the site, someone I know did. He said they added the pedophilia stuff fairly recently. I cannot verify this personally. There is however, a "this is what the website looked like before" link.