@just n from bethel:
Thank you so much for your heartfelt concern to everyone here. I know you would absolutely hate to see sites like this face any kind of trouble, not to mention the sincere truth-seeking apostates that frequent here. Everyone is so thankful for your timely reminders. You have truly saved many of us from much pain and [suffering]. We appease you as a faithful watchtower rep to please absolve us of our sins.
I'm not a Watchtower rep; not a peddler nor a salesman. I hope you don't mind me reminding you about things you already know about me, but, first and foremost, I'm a sinner, and my father -- both yours and mine -- is Adam, through whom I have life, and become of whom we -- you and I -- were born in sin and are dying as a result. Of course, it was Jehovah that gave Adam life. (2 Corinthians 2:17; Psalm 49:7-9; Genesis 2:7; Acts 17:28) I am so happy to learn the good news of God that my sins -- as well as yours -- can now be forgiven due to faith in the ransom provided by Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, my Lord and my God. (Romans 3:23-26; John 20:28)
Now Jehovah knew your situation and mine wasn't due to any fault of our own, so he exhibited his righteousness in forgiving our sins by His provision in permitting the payment of a ransom provided through faith in Jesus' blood, and so as a result it is by Jesus' stripes that we are healed and by means of which we can be saved. (Matthew 20:28; Ephesians 1:7-10; 1 Timothy 2:5, 6; 1 Peter 2:24) By our proclaiming the good news of peace to others, we thereby prove to ourselves that we are truly loving our neighbor as ourselves. (Ephesians 6:15; James 2:8)
Some of you here do not appreciate the fact that even if what things Jehovah's Witnesses are teaching is not 100% accurate, with Jehovah being almighty, we can expect Him to know the thoughts and intentions of our hearts in carrying out the work of sharing what things we have learned from His word, the Bible, with others in order that these folks might know the good news that someone shared with us during the manifestation of Jesus' presence, in order that they, and we ourselves, might be saved when the revelation of Jesus Christ occurs. (1 Thessalonians 2:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10; 2:8-12; 1 Timothy 4:6; Matthew 24:30) The reason we strive to endure all of the unkind words spoken against us is because we know what things we suffer in this life to be a proof of God's judgment that those of us that endure will, in fact, be counted worthy of living under God's kingdom, and all such suffering serves to test our faith. (2 Thessalonians 1:4, 5; Luke 18:29, 30)
Some of those here are in fade and some of those here will never return to God's organization; that, of course, is their choice and yours, but despite your sarcasm here, @just n from bethel, my hope is that something in God's word will begin to resonate with those that still have an appreciation for the word of God, with those that have no desire to perish along with the rest that don't seem to care about their eternal future.
But since we're discussing technicalities here, lets look at your "conjectures":
As a LDA that works in lockstep with several attorneys, whose job as an advocate is to assist those defending against civil actions brought against them here in California with a view to effecting amicable settlements of such matters, I wasn't discussing technicalities at all in my post, and conjecture is only needed when the evidence is incomplete. While my business begins and ends in state courts and doesn't extend to federal courts, the copyright laws have already been decided.
YOU SAID for each such email communication constitutes a criminal count
Yes, I did say that each such email communication is a separate criminal count.
FYI, US law and other jurisdictions that are obliged to the DMCA laws do not apply to every poster here. Many of the people receiving and forwarding information are not bound by your limited borders that you're trying to impose.
My hope is that no one here is so foolish as to listen to the advice you've given here; you're mistaken in what you say here in that the copyright laws are international in scope and does apply to every poster here without exception. I wasn't trying to impose anything on anyone. What I was trying to do is to make a few suggestions to Simon and Lady Lee so that nothing bad happens to this site (like a temporary injunction) because of the actions of others, and to put people like @yknot on notice as a warning that her life could change dramatically if she should continue to include links to the new textbook in her posts since, if I could pay someone to discover her identity in under 20 minutes using her IP, certainly the WTS could pay someone to do so, and her life would change dramatically if she should need to sell her home or possessions to hire an attorney to defend her against every link she included in her posts to the copyrighted work being discussed here.
Now what I say here applies to all that are doing this equally, but I single her out because, in reading her posts, I think she thinks she's small potatoes, and so nothing at all will happen to her for what she's doing, and I'm sure that that is what Jammie Thomas thought, too, and this delusion of hers led to her having had a $220,000 jury verdict rendered against her in a court of law!
The WTS does have a legal department, but it occasionally must pay unrighteous men to handle certain legal matters, so if @yknot thinks that Jehovah's Witnesses would never pursue her mercilessly for the things she has done for each such criminal act, she's probably right, but these unrighteous men they hire will not be Jehovah's Witnesses and, as Jesus warned at Luke 12:58, 59, "you will certainly not get out from there until you pay over the last small coin of very little value."
@djeggnog wrote:
If anyone here should think engaging in criminal conduct like this is just harmless fun, it's not harmless, and such a lawsuit could potentially impact your family economically, exposing you to having to pay legal fees to the attorney you are forced to hire to represent you in court, and to your having to pay a sizeable jury award for copyright infringement.
@just n from bethel:
Now as for what you deem as moral implications, you said: If anyone here should think engaging in criminal conduct like this is just harmless fun, it's not harmless
Care to elaborate: How exactly does this harm anyone (I'm not talking about those that you imply the Watchtower will sue and try to hurt financially with all the court costs, etc.)? Seriously - how does this harm anyone? Do you mean to say that it [embarrasses] the Watchtower? If so, why? Is there something embarrassing about the contents or does it solely expose their claim of being God's chosen religion as ridiculous? Seriously - back up your claim that this is harmful - prove it.
No, I don't care to do so. This is what is so wrong with apostasy; by asking questions like "How does this harm anyone?" or "Is it really so that God has said that..." to the unsophisticated, you can easily deceive such persons into taking a course that is detrimental to both themselves and to their family, unless you think their having to pay legal bills amounting to $20,000 or more is worth an attempt to"embarrass" those Jehovah's Witnesses that may be associated with the WTS at Bethel or Patterson, whose livelihood depend entirely upon the generosity of other Jehovah's Witnesses for their financial support in pursuing their sole endeavor to serve the spiritual needs of others. Why would anyone, except those unsettled in mind and those who are haters of God, seek to harm so many people whose only "crime" is in demonstrating the love they have for their neighbors in sharing with them the good news about the kingdom of God?
I assume that you've read the textbook, so why don't you tell me: What did you find in it that you concluded ought to have been an embarrassment to me or to any of Jehovah's Witnesses? Is there anything at all that you feel comfortable about sharing with me?
Like I said, I don't care to elaborate on the obvious here, but do you think it embarrassing for an elder to have to handle a case of a married brother's extramarital affair with a sister for six months with whom he had studied three years ago which affair comes to light a year after the sister's baptism when their affair ended two years earlier is outted by a householder invited to the Kingdom Hall, who sees the brother and his children, and the sister at the Kingdom Hall the same as a case where a sister that has a one-night stand three years ago with someone that becomes a brother six months ago and feels it necessary to unburden himself by reporting the sister's fling with him? In both instances, Bible principles are involved (and the wife forgives her husband's former adultery), and while in both cases, all parties seem to be repentant over their wrongdoing, but does the textbook direct what must be done or what elders should do? Please provide the page number(s) in the manual where the answer can be found.
While you are struggling to find such a page, please note that herein lies the reason why elders alone are permitted to read it: If anyone should become apprised of how the local elders might approach cases of wrongdoing, certain strategies could be developed by wolves speaking twisted things that they might pick off the flock one by one as their prey, where such subterfuge could make it more difficult to find true repentance or a clever ruse. (Colossians 2:8; Acts 20:29, 30) BTW, in my previous post, I wrote that "ministerial servants are permitted to read [the latest textbook]," but upon reviewing my post, I wanted to clarify that only the elders may do so. But it is not beneficial to provide information to help elders to better and more efficiently shepherd the flock to those that do not have such a weighty responsibility.
In the world, in a litigious society, there are laws and penalties exacted for violations of law, but in Christ, Christians are no part of the world, and so, in the congregations of God, under Kingdom rule, Christians must be governed, not due process of law, but by means of God's undeserved kindness. (Romans 6:15; John 15:19; 17:16; 2 John 3) No one has a right to receive God's undeserved kindness, for such is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8) You've read scriptures like John 17:16 and Ephesians 2:8 before, but maybe now in this context you now have a better understanding of what these scriptures mean.
A married brother and married sister might become emboldened to premeditatedly conspire to have their adulterous relationship discovered hoping to both be disfellowshipped for a year or two as they "encourage" their innocent spouses to sue them for divorce so that the disfellowshipped couple might be reinstated in the congregation, now married to one another as had been their plan all along, if they were in possession of information contained in a manual kept secret from everyone but the elders that positively indicated two years as being their sanction. Because Jehovah had the fact that "David became father to Sol'o·mon by the wife of U·ri'ah" recorded in the Bible, it is clear that elders cannot overlook the potential of such schemes occurring in their midst, or allow themselves to be overreached by Satan's designs so as to prevent the infiltration of such corrupting influences into the congregation. (Matthew 1:6; 2 Corinthians 2:11; 1 Corinthians 5:5-7; Romans 15:4)
@djeggnog wrote:
If anyone here has a hatred for Jehovah's Witnesses, I think one should sever their relationship with Jehovah's Witnesses and leave its ranks, and maybe join some other church group (or not!), and throw away those NWTs and other WTS publications from which you keep quoting here so that you will not be reminded of your former association whenever you should see one of them, since these Bible translations and publications were produced by Jehovah's Witnesses primarily for use by Jehovah's Witnesses anyway in connection with their beliefs and their evangelization work, although they are currently still being made available to the public by Jehovah's Witnesses (but probably not for too many more years).
@just n from bethel:
Finally, your ending long sentence just kind of rambles and is so lacking in adequate grammar nobody could ever tell what you're trying to say. I mean you're obviously upset and crying while you type - maybe you could just use a hug. But we gotta know: what do you mean by stating that publications probably won't be made available to the public after "too many more years"?
You're right; my ending sentence was rather long. But in response to your question, perhaps you've heard that since 1914, the world has been in its last days. Very soon now, the great tribulation will begin when the political wild beast will turn on the harlot, at which time Jehovah's Witnesses will no longer be in a position to visit people at their homes or leave Bibles and Bible-based literature with them, at which point the sheep will then be separated from the goats, which will be climaxed by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Armageddon). (Matthew 24:21, 30; 25:31-33; Revelation 17:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-9) I'm sure you remember reading all about these things in the Bible, so I won't bore you by providing more detail about these things than you require.
Your feeble attempt at dialogue shows quite a lack of education on your part. You're quite inconsistent in your train of thought and obviously have never learned to [communicate] properly. You should also brush up on your international intellectual property law and start providing actual case law if you want to tell people all over the globe how to behave. Moreover, never forget what this is really about with you and why you're being a crybaby: you're just pissed off that elders appointed by holy spirit have seen fit to share information that you want [suppressed].
I don't want any information suppressed. In fact, I have no opinion on the matter. While those having responsibility over things that relate to the dissemination of our textbook to unauthorized persons, I'm happy doing what it is I do in helping Jehovah's Witnesses in fade or disfellowshipped and disassociated ones come back to Jehovah. With everlasting life in view, there is absolutely nothing over which I have any need to cry. If you think I do not know the laws of the US that I've affirmed to protect and defend, try me, but as far as my education is concerned, you might want to get your typos in check before seeking to extract the straw from my eye. (Luke 6:41, 42)
@Listener:
It would make an interesting case if the accused (the person copying [religious] matter) fought on the basis of freedom of religion....
That would be a losing defense, but that would be the defendant's own decision to make.
In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths. For a current overview, see section Contemporary situation of religious freedom in the world.
These do not seem to be your own words. You seem to be quoting from something you read, but do you have any of your own thoughts that you'd be interested in sharing?
@djeggnog wrote:
This textbook is not a secret manual, for while only elders have received copies of it, ministerial servants are permitted to read it, although copies of it have been provided to just the elders.
@fokyc wrote:
I must disagree; ONLY Elders are allowed a copy and only Elders are allowed access to it.
You're right. As I said in my previous post, only elders received a copy of the new textbook. I had indicated that ministerial servants were permitted to read it, but I misspoke, for only elders are permitted to read it. However, I contend that if elders have copies of the new textbook, then its contents would only be a secret from you unless and until you obtained a copy of it. Here in the US, POTUS Obama is given a daily intelligence briefing regarding national security and although the president, his cabinet and his advisors are all citizens of the US, you and I are not privvy to the brief the POTUS receives because the information it contains in confidential. You can argue that the information contained in the belief is a "secret manual," if you like, but the information contained in the new textbook is likewise of a confidential nature, making its contents a secret to you unless you should obtain an unauthorized copy of it, which I understand many here have done.
As no income can be or will ever be derived from this book, litigation would have little benefit.
I made the assumption upon reading your post that you were an adult, a mature one. I trust that I've not misjudged you and that you weren't thinking when you wrote this.
@Eiben Scrood:
djeggnog - are you trying to say that people who have already downloaded the elders' manual for their personal use are presently in danger of legal action?!!
Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying here.
I find that to be highly unlikely.
Ok.
@Lady Lee:
If the WTS chose to do it they could [subpoena] Simon's records, find out who has the book and sue them. I'm not saying they would. I'm saying they could. It is their legal right.
This is correct.
What djeggnog said matches up with what I have researched. And don't think that just because you don't live in the US you are off the hook. International copyright laws are pretty much the same everywhere.
This is also correct.
I hate like hell defending the WTS so I am only doing it to protect this board and yes to protect YOU
That's my only motivation in saying the things that I said in this thread as well.
and just because you don't like what djeggnog said doesn't give you the right to slam him because you don't like the legal truth. I've already removed 3 posts slamming him. I'm here and ready to remove others that go over the top
I agree with your comments here, but, so that you know, I have a very thick skin, and the ignorance of the many doesn't faze me at all. I do believe though that the ignorant can be moved to repentance, too, for the apostle Paul himself attested to his having been ignorant, but if he was shown mercy, so can the ignorant here on this board obtain mercy. (1 Timothy 1:13; 1 Peter 2:10)
@donuthole:
The laws are continually changing in this digital age but downloading and possessing a copyrighted work is not a illegal. Distribution is illegal. However the reason the RIAA is able to file such a large suit on music file sharers is because they can claim a financial loss because the works that are being downloaded are also sold. If the Watchtower decided to be litigious they would have a difficult time proving up financial losses for an internal manual that is freely distributed to elders within their religion. Further they would have to decide if bringing a lawsuit to the public is worth the attention it would bring to a document that they very much want to keep away from public (legal) scrutiny.
You sound like @just n from bethel to me, and my hope is that no one here is so foolish as to listen to the advice that you and he have given here. While it is true that "laws are continually changing," I've been talking about copyright law. You're sound totally clueless and vague. What are you saying here exactly? Are you suggesting that folks should break the law and potentially find themselves defending a lawsuit for copyright infringement or what?
Make no mistake about it, despite eggnogs claims, the elder's manual is very much a secret document. Letters have already leaked where the elders received official directives that no one but elders are permitted to look at it. It must be kept out of site, even from family. Further having the book spiral bound by a place like Kinko's or a sister in the congregation is expressly forbidden. The only exception is that a baptized brother may bind but only under the direct supervision of an elder. Think about it. If the book was not intended to be secret why such strict directives?
The textbook is confidential, and since only the elders may obtain copies of it, it is not a secret from them, but if you are not authorized to receive a copy of it, then its contents would be a secret from you. I have pleadings here of a confidential nature that you are not authorized to read, but there are attorneys and clients with whom I regularly discuss the matters they contain and because you are not privvy to them do not render these pleadings "secret documents," but their contents would be a secret to you. If one of the attorneys or the client should authorize you to receive copies of any of these pleadings, only then would they no longer be a secret to you, but, again, none of these documents are a secret to me.
In the meantime, those that have chosen to distribute this file are taking an understood risk and are engaging in civil disobedience for the greater good. (That is if they even are in a country where these laws are applicable.)
What "greater good" do you mean? For Christ's sake?
There is a public value in having this book widely released. Here are just a few reasons:
1.) Their secret directives on how to handle someone who has a blood transfusion is in violation to the agreement they made with the Bulgarian government.
What "secret directives"? Ask anyone: Jehovah's Witnesses the world over are known as a group that refuses to accept blood transfusions. This is no secret to anyone. I don't agree that there is any public value in having our textbook "widely released" to the public.
2.) Some of their secret instructions on how to handle judicial meetings betray any claims to clergy confidentially the Watchtower has used when shielding such meetings from scrutiny during child abuse lawsuits.
Come again? What "clergy confidentiality"? Jehovah's Witnesses do not have a clergy class, for we are all of us brothers. What do you mean? Again, I don't agree that there is any public value in having our textbook "widely released."
3.) When a Witness undergoes a judicial meeting they are not fully informed of their rights. The release of the manual provides information for those who are being tried in such a manner so that they are better prepared.
What "rights"? In this world, there is such a thing as "due process of law," but, in Christ, there is no due process. There is no public value in having our textbook "widely released" to the public.
That being said this website is exercising their due diligence by removing links to the material ensuring that this forum resource can remain available for those who would benefit from it. Even then removing links right now won't matter too much in the long run. The cat is already out of the bag. WikiLeaks currently has their hands full with the release of the Iraq war documents but eventually the book will end up on their servers for any who have a continued interest in it. Even though they have nothing to do with this religion they fully understand that there is an important public interest in having the material available.
I'm sorry, @donuthole, but in reading this last statement of yours, you may be smart about some things, but when it comes to the law, I'm quite sure that you are stupid. You are talking to @Lady Lee and @Simon about removal of the links when you were singing -- in the same message -- about civil disobedience being the "greater good." Don't try to take two positions. Just take one position and argue for that position. IMO no one here should take anything you have to say seriously (until you at least have something to say).
@djeggnog
