Copyright violation

[Adityanath]

The works of Shri Gurunath Mahendranath are protected by copyright. No
permission has been granted for them to be republished on vsociety.net.

As editor of Shri Mahendranath's works and representative of the copyright
holder, the International Nath Order, I must ask you to remove the following
documents from your site which you are publishing without permission:

The Magick Path of Tantra
url:
http://files.vsociety.net/data/library/Section%201%20(A,G,M,S,Z)/Mahendranath,%20Shri%20Gurudev/Unknown%20Album/The%20Magical%20Path%20of%20Tantra_%20The%20Orga.pdf

The Tantra of Blowing the Mind
url:
http://files.vsociety.net/data/library/Section%201%20(A,G,M,S,Z)/Mahendranath,%20Shri%20Gurudev/Unknown%20Album/The%20Tantra%20of%20Blowing%20the%20Mind.pdf

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Peace, Freedom & Happiness,

Adityanath

[XIII]

The files have been removed until further notice. Our apologies.

[`Nazukarr]

<.<

[Adityanath]

Thanks for the quick response!

[Raitaro]

Might I add that we have no permission to post the majority (if not all) of the books that we have done...

[Julianus]

First of all, most works here in Veritas have been published decades ago and after a certain period of time (50 years?) the author (or any other individual) does not have any ownership rights over it.

Secondly, a great proportion of them has been written during Renaissance, the middle ages and the ancient times. Such books are considered "classics" and are not bound by any copyright laws.

Thirdly, Veritas does not use these books for profit.

Fourthly, concerning the books which are still protected by copyright laws and are hosted by Veritas, I'd have to say that we are not the only ones. Try searching on the web for books on the occult (or any other topic) and have a look at how many sites will pop up.

If the majority though does not wish to violate such a law, there could still be a way to "cheat" such regulations in a legal way. What could be done would be simply to link the copyrighted books to other websites instead of hosting them here. In that way, Veritas will not have any problem at all.

This is an extreme situation though. As I previously said, there are hundreds of others websites - even bigger than Veritas - who host e-books. If any editor would really have a problem, he would firstly contact those sites; Veritas is too small comparing to them.

[Steve]

"First of all, most works here in Veritas have been published decades ago and after a certain period of time (50 years?) the author (or any other individual) does not have any ownership rights over it. " Unless the copyright is renewed or is bought by someone else.

"Secondly, a great proportion of them has been written during Renaissance, the middle ages and the ancient times. Such books are considered "classics" and are not bound by any copyright laws." The general contents of the original books would indeed become public domain, but if we are hosting materials published by companies which have copyrights over their publications then we would indeed be in violation of copyrights regardless of how old the material is. For instance, I have the first of Agrippa's books republished by Kenssinger and if I scanned it into pdf format and uploaded it to my personal freewebs account then I would be in violation of that specific copyright.

"Thirdly, Veritas does not use these books for profit." One of the few loopholes that allow us to host some books.

"Fourthly, concerning the books which are still protected by copyright laws and are hosted by Veritas, I'd have to say that we are not the only ones. Try searching on the web for books on the occult (or any other topic) and have a look at how many sites will pop up. " Two wrongs don't make a right.

"If the majority though does not wish to violate such a law, there could still be a way to "cheat" such regulations in a legal way. What could be done would be simply to link the copyrighted books to other websites instead of hosting them here. In that way, Veritas will not have any problem at all." Then it would depend on the laws which pertain to our webhosting server as to whether providing links to illegal material would still be a violation, as some places do have laws which prohibit something as vague and generic as providing means of access to illegal materials. It's rare, but such laws do exist in some places.

"This is an extreme situation though. As I previously said, there are hundreds of others websites - even bigger than Veritas - who host e-books. If any editor would really have a problem, he would firstly contact those sites; Veritas is too small comparing to them." The RIAA sued I-don't-know-how-many students and individual citizens for file sharing a few years ago, but they hit hard. Regardless of whether we're the biggest fish in the pond, or just an easily caught fish, if the copyright holders decide to go after us then they have every legal right to do so if we are breaking a copyright violation.

Raitaro's statement is a very astute observation and the only two things which save us are allowances for non-profit uses of copyrighted materials (though even these are limited in ways that we could be over-stepping) and the lack of action on the part of the publishers.

~Steve

[Vecna]

All books hosted at Veritas are required (by our host if nothing else) to be legal.  Therefore if we host books in error, and someone points this out we take them down.  That's all there is to it really.

~Vecna

[Tempest Desh]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

But, three rights make a left...