Copyright enforcement as modern day book burning and censorship

[Magda Hassan]

It has come to my attention that some ridiculous men in suits are trying to take down the webite that hosts the 'Collected Works of Marx and Engles' normally available here: http://www.marxists.org/ Given how long Marx and Engels have been dead and how widely distributed their works are it will amount to putting genie back in its bottle but the fact that some one wishes to try is very interesting. Like some one claiming copyright on the King James ersion of the bible and banning unauthorised use of it. Hopefully they may have shot themselves in the foot with this action. Louis Proyect has written a letter :

Ms. Sally Davison,

I have just learned that your lawyers have instructed the Marxists
Internet Archive to remove texts that originate in your books. You
should be aware that I have instructed the subscribers to the Marxism
List, a 16 year old listserv with 1500 subscribers whose archives
probably get something like 100,000 visits per month, to boycott your
"radical" business.

The last time MIA was ordered by men in suits to cease and desist was
over a decade ago, that time by the decrepit Socialist Workers Party in
the USA. That's some company you are keeping.

Your name is mud.

Yours truly,

Louis Proyect, moderator of the Marxism mailing list

Also from Louis:

Lawrence & Wishart is a British publishing company formerly associated
with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was formed in 1936,
through the merger of Martin Lawrence, the Communist Party's press and
Wishart Ltd, a family-owned liberal and anti-fascist publisher.[1]

It publishes the journals New Formations, Anarchist Studies, Renewal,
Twentieth Century Communism, and Soundings.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_and_Wishart

MY ADVICE IS TO BOYCOTT THESE FUCKING "RADICALS".

Any one interested in downloading the contents of the archive you can do so by using the following command line in terminal, if you use Linux or Mac


wget -m http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/index.htm
The wget command is also available for Windows as part of the Unix utilities from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

A download also available here I think:[URL="http://www.mediafire.com/download/8ucud101l6kfmra/MECW+1-47.pdf"]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/8ucud1...W+1-47.pdf[/URL]

[David Guyatt]

How ridiculous. It's reminiscent of someone arguing that the world is square all over again.

[Magda Hassan]

https://www.change.org/petitions/lawrenc...orks#share





[URL="https://www.change.org/petitions/lawrence-wishart-no-copyright-for-marx-engels-collected-works#share"]

• Petitioning Lawrence & Wishart
  

[/URL]

No Copyright for Marx Engels Collected Works

• • 
    
  • Petition by
    Ammar Aziz
    Lahore, Pakistan
    
    
  
  

It is immensely ironic that a private publishIng company is claiming the copyright of the collected works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the philosophers who wrote against the monopoly of capitalism and its origin, private property, all their lives.
Marxists Internet Archieve is an internatioanl, public archieve which gives free access to a wide range of academic and historical writings about Marxism in multiple langauges. Lawrence & Wishart is a private publishing house in Britain which claims to hold the copyright of Marx Engels Collected Works. During the last several years, the Marx Engels Collected Works have been read by the millions of people on the Marxists Internet Archeive (MIA). However, now the private publishing company, Lawrence & Wishart - which loves to position itself as a 'radical company', claiming historical links with the Britain's Communist Party - has directed MIA to delete all texts originating from Marx Engels Collected Works (MECW).
If this happens, MECW would not be accessible on the internet for free, from 30th April, 2014, and that would be a huge loss for the students and political activists who continue to utilize this free academic source.
You cannot privatize their writings -- they are the collective property of the people they wrote for. Privatization of Marx and Engels' writings is like getting a trademark for the words 'socialism' or 'communism'.
Say NO to the copyright law for the founders of scientific socialism. Let's protest against Lawrence & Wishart for this ironic monopoly.

To:
Lawrence & Wishart, 99a Wallis Road London E9 5LN
Sally Davison, Managing Editor
Lawrence & Wishart

It is a matter of a serious concern for us that you have directed the Marxists Internet Archive to delete all the writings from Marx Engels Collected Works. As an organization which has been affiliated with the Britain's Communist Party in the past and which is known for publishing progressive literature, that's low!

We urgently demand you to take back this nasty, capitalistic decision and let the collected works remain a collective source of knowledge.

No Copyright for Marx Engels Collected Works!





Sincerely,
[Your name]

[Magda Hassan]

How ridiculous. It's reminiscent of someone arguing that the world is square all over again.

Any way you look at it an insane action. As a company they have just done the biggest PR fail and completely alienated their target group. If they think it hard to make a buck in 'radical' publishing just wait till they see it now. They have successfully united the whole international left against them. No mean feat given how divided and sectarian the left is. Academics are moving their work to other publishers more worthy of their buiness. Book buyers looking elsewhere for their purchases. Lawrence and Wishart continue to dig a bigger hole for themselves trying to justify the unjustifiable instead of retracting.