Theos-Talk Archives (July 2007 Message tt00290)

MKR, you write:

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Come, on. As a business proposition, most of the publications are 
money loosers. Those interested in theosophy in the world is very 
miniscule. Even among them, those interested in CWL and would shell 
out money to buy a hard copy book will be fewer. In addition, with 
Internet more and more material is on the web. It is not uncommon to 
find even copyrighted books on the web. The kid who has access to a 
high speed scanner and for the fun of it scan anything and upload it 
to the web. The future is going to be free material on the web. No 
money, no royalties, ....
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MKR,

Your statements, especially the last three sentences, are very 
troubling.

May I ask you:  do you work?  How do you make money?  How do you 
support yourself in this world?

If you do work, do you want and expect to be compensated for your 
time and effort in working?

When authors and writers spend hundreds if not thousands of hours 
researching and writing a book, are they not entitled to the fruits 
of their labors?  It is called ROYALTIES.

Also when publishers invest thousands of dollars to publish a book, 
are they not entitled to the fruits of their labors?

There are copyright laws out there in most countries that protect 
writers and publishers from their works being STOLEN.

How would you like for someone to break into your house and steal 
something of yours?

Of course, books that are no longer under copyright protection can be 
reproduced on the web and nothing is wrong with that , but 
copyrighted materials should not be allowed to be illegally copied 
anywhere on the internet.

Let me end by looking at HPB's Collected Writings.  Of course, 
H.P.B.'s writings are out of copyright.  But consider this, the 
Theosophical Publishing House was willing over many decades to invest 
thousands and thousands of dollars into the printing of H.P.B.'s 
works.  I don't know the details but possibly Boris de Zirkoff 
received some payment for the HPB volumes he produced.  If he did, 
why shouldn't he?  He had to make a living like anyone else, had to 
pay for food, pay for housing.  If this royalaty money helped him to 
live so that he could in turn spend thousands of hours finding and 
collecting HPB's writings, then what is wrong with that?

That is why I encourage students who have money to buy the print 
volumes of HPB's Collected Writings.

See my gateway page at:

http://collectedwritings.net

where I wrote:

"SUPPORT the continuation of the HPB Collected Writings Series by 
buying the print volumes."

Also I should point out that there are tons and tons of material in 
print that are not on the web.  In the realms of religion and related 
topics alone, probably the vast majority of the material, especially 
the good reliable material, is still NOT on the web.

I will say more later about what I wrote in the last paragraph above 
but I simply wanted to give some perspective that was sorely lacking 
in your quoted remarks.

Daniel