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Q: It seems apparent that
the Endeavor people contested the validity of the copyright on the grounds
that the Course was channeled, but are the CIMS people going to try and
make the same case?
A: Endeavor has several
arguments, prior public domain (pre-copyright) publication is an important
one. As I understand the CIMS case, the prior PD publication is their
central legal argument.
Q: When can we expect a
decision on the Endeavor case?
A: The suit was begun in
1996. They are now finished with the discovery phase and Ken made a motion
for summary judgement which is currently being considered. If he wins
that, as I understand things (and I don'tunderstand the legal details all
that well), it's over and Ken wins. If not I suppose it's on to trial.
Maybe a decision in another
five years?
Ken's case is actually
quite simple: It is that Helen wrote the book under inspiration from
"the Abstract love of God" which is what she means by the word
"Jesus"; that Helen's copyright ended up in her hands quite
legally; and that Ken can control totally what others do with the material
since he owns it.
What's perhaps most
interesting is that this idea is not new and didn't cause much stir from
1975 (when the copyright was registered) until 1996 (when Penguin sued
EA). In that period Judith Skutch administered it with a degree of
flexibility that the vast majority of people found they could live with,
even if they didn't like.
In 1996 a five year
exclusive licence to print ACIM was sold to Penguin for US$3 million.
Penguin immediately sued EA for the "crime" of quoting the
Course in various pamphlets without any footnotes and for printing copies
of the Workbook, in 50 lesson large print volumes, for use in classes at
the Academy.
On the cosmic scale of
"Copyright Infringements" this was pretty small potatoes and it
would be hard to demonstrate that Penguin or Judith or Ken lost a dime
from it. In fact, they probably gained through the free advertising it
provided for the Course.
Assuming a valid copyright,
failure to properly cite quotes and reproduction of the whole of Volume
Two probably goes beyond "fair use" provisions of the copyright
law. It might not however, since limited copying for use in academic
settings (classrooms) is permitted.
Nothing in EA's activity
appears to me to violate the *spirit* of the copyright law which is to
protect the *commercial rights* of the author, his heirs and assigns.
Given the small numbers and that nothing was sold, just given away, and
that no complete copies of the Course were given away, any loss of sales
would be offset by free advertising for the whole thing.
Why Penguin chose to sue is
not known to me as the EA activity itself was in no way a commercial
threat.
Well, EA tried to negotiate
with FIP/Skutch, which was the copyright owner. No luck there so they
hired a lawyer. The first thing the lawyer did was investigate the
validity of the original 1975 copyright taken out in the name of
"Anonymous (Helen Shucman)". Given 20 years of claims that Jesus
was the author by Ken and others, said lawyer argued that the information
provided to the copyright office was fraudulent in that
A) Everyone involved knew
very well who the author was, citing "anonymous" was
deliberately deceptive and
B) Everyone involved,
including Helen, had always said it wasn't Helen, but was Jesus.
C) Since the copyright had
been obtained by fraudulent means, it was not valid.
I think THAT took Penguin
totally by surprise.
Then EA's lawyer asked for
the case to be dismissed because FIP, not Penguin was the copyright
holder. That forced FIP to show up in court. It is my belief that Judith
Skutch Whitson did NOT want to be involved and was rather thoroughly
annoyed by this.
Then in March-April 1999
the copyright changed hands. Judith sold it to Ken. Almost instantly the
proverbial fecal matter hit the proverbial rotary ventillation device and
Ken's "Anonymous Correspondent Service" began sending nastigrams
to everyone they could find on the net and elsewhere even talking about
the Course. Hundreds of groups and individuals on and off the web felt
obliged to cease or gut their Course-related activities, not being in a
position to hire lawyers and contest Ken's cease-and-desit orders.
A smaller number did
consult legal advice and were generally told that there is nothing illegal
about talking about the Course (even assuming the copyright to be valid)
or quoting from it to some extent. Some of these refused to comply with
Ken's cease-and-desist orders. Ken then began threatening their ISPs with
suits and that got rid of scores more. ISPs aren't generally willing to
hire lawyers under such circumstances. They simply aren't prepared to
spend a lot of money fighting for someone else's freedom of expression
when they know nothing about the case and are told by a New York IP lawyer
that there is a valid copyright. They are inclined to believe the latter.
Many Course students also
aren't willing to "fight", although Ken Wapnick, the
self-proclaimed "Official Teacher" certainly isn't one of those
:). The lengths to which he'll go to stifle and suppress others even
*quoting his version* of the Course is quite remarkable.
So for some months the
campaign of harassment, with some significant resistance, continued. Then
Ken tried to shut down the Circle of Atonement (Robert Perry's outfit in
Arizona) and Perry hired a lawyer and made a "Petition for
Declaratory Relief" asking the courts to rule his activities within
"fair use" *AND* questioning the validity of the copyright on
the same grounds EA used. That one was settled out of court in late April
with a "secret deal" that, in Perry's words, at least allows COA
to continue. Perry was under a lot of pressure because he couldn't afford
the legal fees. That is the sitution most of Ken's targets find themselves
in. Ken win's by virtue of the almighty dollar, not any legal or moral
right.
One of the arguments
suggesting the copyright is invlaid relates to pre-copyright publication.
Although there are a lot of people still alive who were involved in the
dissemination of the Course in multiple photocopies prior to October 1975
when the copyright was applied for, their stories about what happened are
wildly conflicting. Parties involved therefore began searching for
physical evidence, copies of the Course which could be dated earlier than
that. Quite a number, and fragments of several more have emerged. That
search led eventually to the ARE library in Virginia Beach. This is the
Cayce Library (Association for Research and Enlightenment).
There a copy of the text
portion of the Course was found which could be dated to the period between
September 1972 and May 1973 with some certainty. Helen and Bill had given
this copy to Hugh Lynn Cayce, Edgar Cayce's son. It had been available to
the public in the library since at least 1976 and had itself been
copyrighted by Ken some 14 years later.
The enormous surprise was
that, contrary to expectations and nearly universal belief, it did not
contain "virtually no changes" from the later versions, it was
almost unrecognizable in the first five chapters. What was found was
evidence of a LOT more than pre- copyright publication, it was evidence
that the "Story of the Course" as it's been told for 20 years
was at serious variance with the facts.
Over a six week period a
large number of volunteers typed this material into computers, proofed it,
and on January 5, 2000, it was posted to the Internet. Ken's legal people
responded with genuinely surprising speed and energy to shut down the
websites offering it yet, since that had been anticipated, more websites
quickly popped up and so far Ken's been unable to shut them all down,
though he certainly HAS gone to enormous lengths to do so.
One site in New Zealand is
illustrative of his way of operating. In the absence of any legal
authority, that is to say a court order from a NZ court, Ken's people
threatened to have the NZ ISP's links to the USA severed if it didn't
remove the material. The threat was probably idle but the NZ ISP depends
on those links for its business and wasn't prepared to call the bluff or
take the risk of being put out of business.
CIMS emerged in the late
winter of 2000 with, as a primary purpose, the publication on paper of the
HLC for the benefit of those without Internet access. Then Ken went to
court in Louisville and got the now-infamous restraining order which not
only made further distribution of the paper version illegal, it forbids
members of CIMS from even talking about the Course or quoting *any*
version of it.
The next court date for
that is July 18.
With freedom of religious
expression now effectively eliminated in the land of the free and the home
of the brave, the further dissemination of the HLC falls to those outside
the USA and beyond the jurisdiction of the US Federal District Court of
Western Kentucky.
Rather like when the Bible
was banned in England in the 1500s, translators and printers moved to
Holland, Ken's prohibitions on the HLC in the USA will simply find
political/legal environments which are more "freedom friendly".
Ken began with
"requests to cooperate" with the suppression of freedom of
expression and those who refused gradually found themselves under
escalating sanctions, culminating in lawsuits.
As is almost universally
the case with repressive measures, the only real effect is to force the
activity being repressed "underground." While many Course
students feel uncomfortable about apparently "clandestine"
activities, it should come as a surprise to no one. Persecution of
religious ideas is in no way shape or form novel or new! "Blessed are
ye when men persecute you and revile you and heap all manner of calumny on
you for my sake, for thus persecuted they the Prophets who went before
you!"
They nailed Jesus to the
cross for "Blasphemy" (all quite legally mind you) and burned
Tyndale at the stake for translating and publishing the New Testament (all
quite legally mind you) and threw Christians to the lions for three
hundred years when the Church was an "illegal organization" that
had to operate covertly and clandestinely.
This is just the way such
things go. The persecutions are always instigated by religious authorities
with the collusion of secular authorities (where the two are not
identical). Again, nothing new, the "Official Teacher", Ken
Wapnick, the self-styled prelate of ACIM is out to eliminate competition.
Jesus was first tried by a relgious court, the Sanhedrin which, with
considerable difficulty, convinced the civil authority (Pilate) to do
their bidding. Tyndale was burned by order of the Pope with the collusion
of Henry VIII, and the Church's crime for 300 years was inherently
religious, refusing to honour and worship the Emperor as a god in an era
when religious and secular authority were not clearly demarcated.
Indeed it's interesting
that the history recounted in the Bible, right back to Cain and Abel, is
the story of religious persecution. Abel was the first victim in the
Bible, he was killed because Cain didn't like the way he worshipped! He
was killed for his religion. Abraham left Ur because of religious
disputes. The Israelites were oppressed in Egypt because of disputes over
which deity to worship, the Old Testament Prophets were mostly persecuted
and many were killed by religious and secular authorities for pointing out
abuses and attempting reforms. Jesus was harangued and harassed and
finally killed for his religious ideas. The Apostles were frequently
jailed and many were ultimtely killed for their religious teaching. In the
post-biblical era, the same story continues with the persecutions of
Church generally until 309, then the Gnostics and Monophysites were
persecuted by the early Imperial church. Later it was the Albagensians and
Protestants and Anabaptists burned at the stake by the Imperial Catholic
Church and the Protestants, of course, burned Catholics whenever they
could. All because of different religious ideas.
Just ten years ago you
could be arrested for taking a Bible across the Soviet border. People were
arrested in Beijing yesterday for being members of a proscribed religious
group. And in the USA today some people could be arrested for quoting A
Course in Miracles.
It is only in relatively
recent times and in relatively small areas of the Earth that "freedom
of religion" is recognized in law and practice to any meaningful
extent.
Most of us who are in the
British Commonwealth or the USA and who thought we had the legal right to
freedom of expression are somewhat taken aback by the realization that our
religious ideas are being called "illegal" and someone is trying
to use the courts to gag us!
Ken, of course, strongly
resists the idea that the Course is "religious". He prefers to
stress some resemblance to Plato, which is not mentioned by the Course,
rather than Jesus, or the Bible, the latter of which is quoted some 800
times. Ironically, none of the quotes are footnoted and few are even
cited. If Ken owned a copyright on the Bible he'd be suing the Course for
improper quotes!
Ken's got to try to keep
this as a "copyright issue" and deny the religious significance.
Yet this, in my view, is just another layer of his denial of truth and
hypocrisy. It really has little, if anything to do with copyright.
So we are seeing a gradual
escalation of the conflict. Each repressive step taken by Ken succeeds in
silencing some but never all. Such is the case with all religious
repression. It's noted by OT Prophets who speak of the "remnant"
who will "restore" things. Those who aren't silenced become more
determined and more difficult to silence, indeed more difficult for Ken to
even locate. Each step he takes gets him into deeper and deeper trouble.
Just think, had he DONE
NOTHING about EA, he'd have no problems with copyright. EA didn't begin by
questioning the copyright validity, that only arose in response to his
lawsuit. The HLC would probably still be hiding in the ARE library and
he's probably still be prattling on about "protecting the purity and
integrity" of the Course with a large chunk of the ACIM community
believing he was sincere. It's hard to say just what his legal budget is
but given the number of lawyers, lawsuits, and nastigrams, he's got to
have invested close to a million dollars in legal fees and the
difficulties and contradictions and problems he makes for himself just
keep increasing.
You can jail a man, but you
can't jail an idea. The *idea* that the Course comes from Jesus of the New
Testament is too strong an idea for all the courts in all the world to
suppress. From that idea it necessarily follows that the "words of
Jesus" belong to all, for God's idea of ownership is sharing.
Belonging to all, Ken's claim to personal ownership and control and his
efforts to restrict will not be granted any moral authority regardless of
how much LEGAL authority the courts choose to apply to that concept.
There's a further problem
Ken faces. There are 126 countries in the world last time I counted. Each
has its own courts and its own copyright laws. Many have pretty strong
legal protections for freedom of religion. Ken is going to need all his
personal fortune of US$9 million and THEN SOME to stop the Course from
popping up in freedom somewhere!
As generations of Soviet
governments found, you can stop people from speaking openly with
repression, but you can't stop people from THINKING or speaking privately.
And you can only stop people speaking openly with a very large and
efficient apparatus of repression. Ken hasn't got adequate apparatus.
Repression can kill ideas
only under very limited circumstances, the main one being that people
don't much care about the idea and are willing to accept the repression.
The other circumstance is such total repression that all reistance is
lethally futile. To defeat resistance Ken would have to convince a vast
majority of several things:
A) His version of ACIM is
authentic and possessed of something resembling "purity and
integrity",
B) The book isn't all that
important and access to the original, authentic version isn't very
significant,
C) The book really has
nothing to do with Jesus, the Bible, or religious questions,
D) That resistance or
opposition or "denial of the denial of truth" is futile.
To date Ken's persecutions
have generally tended to convince people of EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of those
four essential points.
Five years ago Ken enjoyed
a very high status in the Course Community and a great deal of
credibility. Few doubted his personal honesty and most were willing to
give him the benefit of the doubt.
I don't think one could say
the same about Ken and his reputation today. The irony is that he's done
it ALL to himself! As the Course says "what you give to your brother,
you give to yourself." I guess it's not irony, it's just the law of
God in operation and when the laws of men are used to spite the laws of
God, it's the laws of God that prevail in the end.
That was a long way of
making a simple point: the copyright is not what's being argued about.
When Judith administered it, she did so in a way that caused few waves,
though it was far from an "anything goes" policy. What's
controversial is the manner of copyright administration which almost
everyone feels is excessively and unnecessarily restrictive under Ken's
administration.
It's similar to the
arguments that led to the American Revolution. Initially most colonists
didn't have a problem with a King and a Parliament in principle, they had
a problem with what they viewed as excessively restrictive laws and
administration. Against that they rebelled and promptly created a new
government that was in most respects identical to the one they overthrew
with one major exception, the new government was more accountable to the
governed.
The controversy is not
really about "copyright" per se, but about freedom (or lack
thereof) to make reasonable and legitimate use of religiously important
material.
The enforceability of the
copyright and the copyrightability of the material only became bones of
contention as a RESULT of excessive and unreasonable restrictions and,
well, the fact that the validity of the copyright is rather dubious. But
the latter fact only emerged as a result of the former.
Ken could put an end to the
controversy instantly if he were to establish a "Copyright
Board" with a broad-based and representative membership to make
decisions about what is and is not acceptable and publish the HLC and the
Urtext and the other 20 volumes of unpublished papers, or even make copies
available for scholarly use. Most people could live with that and Ken
would give the appearance of being a reasonable, civil fellow.
However if he continues to
attempt absolute repression and total personal control, he will face an
escalating conflict because the Sonship, as a whole, is simply too evolved
in this era to put up with inquisatorial practices.
Well, I hope that helps
fill in a few details for you. I think I should turn this into another
"FAQ" sheet.
All the best,
Doug |
