H.H. Jayadvaita Swami, who has been writing some on point articles of late, recently wrote (’Shabby Behaviour‘) about an article of his that was reprinted on the web without his permission.

In today’s world of point-and-click publishing it’s pretty a standard occurrence, and practically impossible to control.

It is attributed to him and unmodified, however it doesn’t contain a link to his website, the source of the article text. This is more a question of etiquette. Both Vaisnava Blog Feeds and ISKCON News reprint entire articles, and include a link to the source. It’s both a service to the reading public, who may wish to check out more of a given author’s material, and a nod in the direction of the author, helping them to expose their ideas to a wider audience.

The legal concept of copyright is a modern development which has been designed to protect the commercial interests of publishers, rather than the rights of authors or the public. Only corporations have the resources to legally prosecute copyright infringers. However, modern information technology, especially peer-to-peer networking, is changing that balance of power.

In the Vedic system there is no legal copyright. It is a case of satyam eva jayate - “may the best idea win”, regulated by the principle that was enunciated by Srila Prabhupada in the immortal phrasing: “Purity is the Force”.

Freely copying earlier literary works, quoting from them and commenting on them, brahmanas, the Vedic thought leaders, create a rich intellectual culture.

Imagine a world in which Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had been forbidden to copy the Brahma Samhita because of “copyright concerns”, where Baladeva Vidyabhusana was forbidden to write a commentary on Vedanta-sutra, or where a hostile agency gains control of the copyright of Srila Prabhupada’s books and halts printing.

It’s a flawed concept.

Here are some interesting articles for the more intellectually inclined amongst the readership:

No Copyright on Krishna - Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti

H.H. Paramadvaiti Swami is a controversial figure in Gaudiya Vaisnava circles, and is a very forceful personality who some might say sometimes overstates his case (and some would say that that is an understatement). This one I read a number of years ago as an interesting intellectual piece. That was until a couple of years later when I suddenly found myself in charge of the BBT in the zone where His Holiness Paramadvaiti Swami is active in preaching and publishing. I had the opportunity to personally discuss his views with him, and to see the practical reality in an area where the BBT was unable to print and supply books, but was simultaneously trying to forbid unauthorized printing.

We simply started an authorized BBT operation printing and importing and they started buying. We also worked together on some imports from Spain. As Sun Tzu would say, if you have to go into battle, you’ve already lost.

Justifying our control of the copyright there I asserted it as necessary to control the content of the books, so that they were not modified, and also the quality. We needed to legally challenge their printing in the absence of our ability to supply in order to retain a legal right to defend the copyright against people in the future who might modify the books. I wasn’t totally comfortable with that line, but it’s the one I preached. After all - while we are justifying it in the name of preserving purity, under that system, now and in the future, who will watch the watchers?

I think that superior quality will win out naturally, and producing higher quality competitively priced products is the real solution to the quality issue, and satyam eva jayate is the real solution to the modification issue. While copyright theoretically protects the integrity of the material by forbidding unauthorized modifications, it unilaterally gives the copyright controller the power to make modifications, which is obviously open to potential abuse.

Free Culture - Lawrence Lessig

This is a link to a flash presentation by Lawrence Lessig.

Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig is one of the minds behind Creative Commons. I use one of their licenses for this website and its content.

In this presentation, which is in a presentation style so distinctive it has become known as the “Lessig Method”, Professor Lessig talks about the legal development of the modern concept of copyright and its implications. As he explains, it exists to protect the commercial interests of publishers by creating a monopoly, rather than to protect the interests of authors, the public, or freedom of thought and expression.

He examines other philosophical and legal models that actually begin to approach the idea of the Vedic tradition where simple principles are enacted at a local level to create a culture, and that complex culture is the moderator.

It’s a complex situation, and I’m not advocating that the BBT and all other institutions should abandon copyright. We exist in a particular environment and compromises and transitional structures need to be put in place and utilized. The ongoing dialogue about the issues, however, which Paramadvaiti Swami’s prophetic paper (published 12 years ago almost to the day) contributes to, is part of the process, and ensures that we will have a dynamically evolving conception and response to the environment as the situation changes.

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Note: the license I use for this site, accessible at the bottom of the page, allows you to use, reuse, and modify the material published here, including for commercial purposes - vaisyas, do your thing!

You must redistribute any derived works under the same license - no taking advantage of freedom without contributing to it!

Legally speaking, you must also give props to me as the original author, including putting an inbound link to my website if you directly quote the material.

I agonized over this one. While the other points create the same legal framework as the classical Vedic environment (leaving aside the “no sudras reading the sastras” type injunctions), this one attempts to recreate the cultural etiquette of giving props. I won’t sue you if you don’t do it, because I’m not interested in bringing people to me, but rather of getting ideas out there. I include it not so that people have to do it, but just to indicate that that’s the usual way it works.

Satyam eva jayate!