Phoenix Journal 197 - Four Winds 10

CHAPTER 9
EDITORIAL FORUM
WALKING THE WALK BEYOND
SIMPLY TALKING SOME TALK
Editor’s note: While providing room (starting on p.2), in this week’s CONTACT to air the righteous
indignation of several readers from afar, members of the team nearby requested a chance to express
their views about our current legal storms, from more of a position “on the firing line”.
Viewed from a perspective which takes in the Larger Picture, it certainly appears there is, as one
reader put it in her letter, a “conspiracy” afoot amongst several ready puppets of the dark forces,
out to attack those who contribute to this beacon of Light. You discern and sort for yourselves,
from these first-hand accounts, those who really walk THE walk—beyond simply talking some talk.
Indeed, God wins in the end, but nobody said the battle would be dull!
COPYRIGHTING THE WORKS OF GOD
by Ray Bilger 2/9/97
The word plagiarism is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition (1951), at page 1308, as “The act
of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or
language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.”
The need for laws to protect one’s own literary work no doubt arose because of the greedy nature of some
people to take the work of someone else and then appropriate it for themselves. If you were to tell a friend
about an idea you had for writing a story and then shortly thereafter you saw your story idea in print under
the authorship of your friend, you would be justified in feeling that your friend had stolen your idea, and you
would probably no longer consider them to be a friend.
The Founders of America and the Framers of her Constitution no doubt understood this problem when
they incorporated the provisions for protection of same in the Constitution at Article I, Section 8, Clause
8, which states, “The Congress shall have the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts,
by securing for limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries.” The purpose of the Clause, as well as the extent and the manner in which it is to be applied,
are the source of continuous debate.
The Supreme Court stated in 1984, in the case of Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 104 S.Ct.
774, 782, that a copyright “is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors” and at the
same time “to allow the public access to the products of their genius...” Thus, the Congress, in passing
copyright legislation, did promote the progress of science and useful arts.
In order to protect the literary expressions of authors and at the same time to promote the discovery of
new facts and information, copyright legislation drew a clear distinction between fictional and non-fictional
writings. Title 17 U.S.C. Section 102(b), states in part that, “in no case does copyright protection for an
51