A Somewhat Surprising Letter

by JanH 37 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Farkel

  Kent,

  : On top of that the I(diots)D(ummies and) G(oons)books threatened to sue me if I didn't remove a page called "1914 For Dummies".

  I wrote "1914 For Dummies" as you know. Let them sue me!

  Farkel
• 

  Kent

  After I got this threat - I immedeately removed the links to where to buy the book. And I've never put them up again.

  That means an average of 4000 people a day won't see that add ..

  Ray got so much advertizing for free, this greed is simply disgusting.

  Yakki Da

  Kent

  "The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler is that God is more proficient at genocide."

  Daily News On The Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses:
  http://watchtower.observer.org
• 

  Derrick

  Hi Kent,

  H2O got a similar threat from an attorney, Ms. So-and-so, to remove Farkel's "1914 for Dummies" and all "________ for Dummies" posts from H2O as a copyright infringement. We were threatened with legal action if we failed to comply with this demand. I felt H2O was too important to others to risk losing over an otherwise "freedom" issue, so I complied with their demand immediately. I also added "dummies" to the "CDA Sensor" software that filtered obscene language, that is why Farkel had to use "D*ummies" or something like that to get around it, LOL. I didn't care because I was simply fulfilling a technical legal demand, and "D*ummies" isn't the same as "Dummies" nor would it show up when the attorneys are searching for keyword "Dummies" on the search engines. (That's how they found Farkel's posts, because the simple html files for WWWBoard were on all search engines.) ;-)

  They mean business, Kent, and non-compliance could risk protracted litigation and losing the Watchtower Observer site, according to what someone I know familiar with law said. Maybe you should call it "1914 for D*ummies" and add an asterisk so when they check your site, it will fail to show the trademarked word? Just a thought.

  Rick
• 

  Francois

  That doesn't sound like the Ray I know, either. And as far as I know, the Commentary Press IS Ray. I haven't spoken with him in some time however and there's no telling what kinds of changes have come about in the interim.

  And, um, fair use is fair use and what constitutes fair use isn't dictated by a publishing firm. If there's a conflict in opinion about that, it must be resolved by a court.

  Why don't you call Ray in Winston, GA and see what's up?

  Francois

  My $0.02
• 

  Osarsif

  Ros wrote:

  > he asked if you would please send a copy of the
  > permission letter to Commentary Press to clear
  > the matter up for Badame.

  Ros, is "C.M.Badame" a pseudonym Raymond Franz uses when he
  doesn't want to sign with his name?
• 

  Free2Bme

  Mmmm
  And here was I in my naive little fantasy that ex-JW's wrote soul-stirring books to rescue their former brothers from the materialistic WTBS not for personal gain.
  Seems like in or out principles are tossed to the wind when they get in the way of making hard cash.

  Free
• 

  JAVA

  Free,

  Don't be too hard on Ray, he needs to make a living and pay bills like anyone else. His books are not priced unreasonably, and they've helped countless Witnesses and former Witnesses. I think it's better to give Raymond the benefit of doubt, given the good he's done.

  --JAVA

  ...counting time at the Coffee Shop
• 

  LadyBug

  His books are not priced unreasonably,

  We've been trying to get a copy of Crisis of Concience through book stores and were told its out of print, but will be reprinted soon with price going up to around $40.00 Aust. Is this true?

  BEW
• 

  Dogpatch

  I think it's really all similar to the Napster issue. We live in changing times, and you can't prevent the infringement of copyright anymore, you just try to control it.

  I've looked at the Napster model for some time, and it appears it does not affect the sales of CDs in record stores. If they would spend some R&R money I'll bet they would find people are downloading and then often buying, more than even if they were not on the net.

  I guess I run a pretty active bookstore, etc. on my site, and find from my logs that not a lot of visitors browse the versions of the books I have free online, and yet book sales for those books are up from when I did not put my stuff out free. Could be many other factors, but why raise a stink and get everyone pissed at you?
• 

  Dogpatch

  Sorry, I meant R&D money. :-))

  You can order Ray's books through us at:
  http://www.freeminds.org/sales/menuframes.htm
  They are in stock, at least for now.
  Randy