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Earlier this year, I received WF's first DMCA takedown notice (I only noticed it today) on a copyrighted material shared in Book Shares . To be completely frank, I wasn't expecting attention this early in WF's new timeline. About a months into the new WF's book shares section launching, I saw (do not ask me how) that Steve Savedow browsed WF. He didn't contact me regarding any of his books shared here, and honestly, we only have 2000 members, of which probably only 50-100 are really active... so I was shocked to see that a publisher thought it fitting to send me a DMCA. I am going to share the content of the notice below, and address the points I'd like to counter, as well as some other points.
I think it is time for a manifesto.
Here's the notice from Peter Grey of Scarlett Imprint in it's entirety:
I completely hear and understand the wishes of authors and publishers to protect their livelihood. I am a creative by trade, and I understand the amount of work that goes into researching, writing, illustrating and publishing a book. Whatever ends up happening, I will not hold it against any author/illustrator/publisher.
WF does not host any copyrighted files on our servers. Legally speaking, some rando out there is purchasing, converting, and sharing these files on MEGA, and sending the links to me printed on 8.5” x 11” card stock via anonymous, untracable postage. I simply share the links I receive. You may contact MEGA to have these links taken down.
WF is hosted in a jurisdiction that most likely will disregard your DMCA.
WF's admin is located in a jurisdiction that will most likely ignore any legal contact.
I have always wanted to find ways to support Occult and Esoteric authors and publishers in a way that does not conflict with the manifesto below. I am open to ideas from members/authors/publishers on how I can help support them in other ways than simply not sharing these weird links to PDFs that some alien is sending me.
Book Sharing Manifesto:
As the name of this subject betrays, occult knowledge is by nature obscured, censored, and difficult to find. While that sanctions all due respect and praise to occult authors, illustrators, publishers, and anyone else who dedicates time, money, and hard work towards creating and distributing occult knowledge, it also validates our crusade to make all of this content even more accessible and available. I am sorry, but I just feel too strongly that it is our duty to propogate this material as widely as possible.
If you can afford to pay for the books you have obtained, read, and enjoyed from WF, then you must purchase them (at least the digital versions). It is your absolute duty to do so.
Authors/publishers: please understand — 99% of the people who download free PDFs of your books would never have purchased them. For many, it is simply too difficult to match their desire to learn and absorb this knowledge with their ability to finance it. Does that really mean they do not deserve to lay their eyes upon the content of your books? Do you truly believe that? Do you want to extinguish that flame? Please have mercy.
If anything, many of those who would not have otherwise purchased a single book, may download 100, and fall in love with one, which then they would purchase. I truly cannot believe the premise that sharing PDFs online significantly impacts your bottom line as publishers/authors.
I will try to be more diligent about providing links to purchase the books that are linked here. I may even institute a rule that compels anyone sharing MEGA links to PDFs to find and share the link to the digital download of said book.
When/if WF ever becomes profitable, I swear on my name, I will make suitable donations to authors/publishers who are featured here, and/or who make exceptional occult publications. I recognize that this is unlikely to directly compensate for the volume of downloaded PDFs if tallied, but I hope it will mean something, especially in light of points 3 and 4 of the manifesto.
Going forward, I will never paywall/time-lock any downloads of book PDFs to upgraded user accounts (with the exception of large collections/archives such as the WF grand library, which I don't expect to gain any copyright attention anyway).
Please... members... authors... publishers... anyone... share your thoughts with me. Am I completely in the wrong? Is there no wiggle room in the morality of sharing this knowledge? I am open to feedback, and open to having my mind changed, but please do so respectfully and logically. I do not want to make this about legality. Frankly – and judge me all you want for this – I do not give a single fuck about the legality of any of these issues, and even if I did, as I mentioned above in the Admin Statement, there are no copyrighted content hosted on WF's servers. We are merely sharing content that has been hosted by others and shared on the internet. This is more about morality, philosophy, and understanding each other. Please help me understand your viewpoints.
I have bought some books, and I will probably be buying more in the future. How can I know if I want to buy a book?
Reviews: Not good enough. I don't expect other people to agree with me 100% of the time, so turnabout is fair play.
Kindle Previews: Yes, this can work but only if the asking price for a digital book is reasonable. Seriously, it doesn't cost anything to make digital duplicates, and I'm not about to pay more than US$10 per book for the privilege of looking at pixels on my monitor or Kindle device.
The nature of obscure books: I probably would have never known your book even exists without it appearing in the WF library. I might decide I like it enough to buy a copy.
The fact that many authors have died: Who exactly am I harming? Their work may not be in the public domain in some countries. There may be no officially published digital copies. Used physical copies might be hard to come by. Who exactly am I harming?
The fact that many books I download aren't even worth finishing: I used to go to the local bookstore and browse the shelves in sections that interested me. And I would often buy books after being able to look all through them from beginning to end, knowing exactly what I was getting. But most of the books I looked through went back on the shelves.
In the end, I'm under no illusions that authors and publishers will change their minds, nor will governments suddenly change laws.
I fully agree with the manifesto and admin rule of the site, and comply with them.
I respect all of my fellow occultists here (even if I had beef with some in the past, I hope to resolve things peacefully), including their opinion.
As a web server administrator that gets severely hacked every time it attracts attention from a script or botnet or whatever, it can be frustrating to have your work shot down the drain in one hack.
However, after a break over the stress in dealing with it, I simply chose apathy and numbness, but I digress...I had to come to the conclusion that as it is a VPS internet ready server, it is a shiny attractive target, much like a book you've produced.
Yet I know some a-hole will hack the server, as it is human nature to test boundaries. Ethics aside, its a fact I would get hacked, and I did, and do. I had to start playing the game, and part of this involved protection of the server.
Here is a thought - most people enjoy PDFs because its less weight to lug around than a laptop and a book bag. Password protect with a one-time access to a PDF version of the book, offered for free as an alternative.
Reality - most serious occultists want the actual book in its hands. They may buy after viewing it electronically.
Finally, if your web server is misconfigured such as showing a directory tree, your book will get pirated by someone out there with no better goals in life.
So, libraries exist for a reason, who says in this Jetsons age that it can never be electronic?
Or .. provide it to pay as a service ebook sites.
1. I will typically want a pdf of any physical book I legally own. If it’s out there I’ll find it and get it.
2. checking out the pdf of a book will often lead to me buying the physical book as well. Then I’ll have physical and pdf and support the creator.
3. If I don’t like the book, I wasn’t going to be a happy customer anyway. Delete pdf. Books aren’t easy to return and better for the creator I not buy the book than tell everyone else to not buy it.
4. piracy happens. Will probably always happen. Fighting against the sliver of people who pirate isn’t worth pissing off a larger percentage of people who don’t.
5. The existence of a thing entitles no one to have access to it. The creator has every right to make their content as exclusive and elite as they like. Limit your market. I don’t care. Creators/publishers have every right to protect their content how they see fit. (Refer to #4)
Earlier this year, I received WF's first DMCA takedown notice (I only noticed it today) on a copyrighted material shared in Book Shares . To be completely frank, I wasn't expecting attention this early in WF's new timeline. About a months into the new WF's book shares section launching, I saw (do not ask me how) that Steve Savedow browsed WF. He didn't contact me regarding any of his books shared here, and honestly, we only have 2000 members, of which probably only 50-100 are really active... so I was shocked to see that a publisher thought it fitting to send me a DMCA. I am going to share the content of the notice below, and address the points I'd like to counter, as well as some other points.
I think it is time for a manifesto.
Here's the notice from Peter Grey of Scarlett Imprint in it's entirety:
I completely hear and understand the wishes of authors and publishers to protect their livelihood. I am a creative by trade, and I understand the amount of work that goes into researching, writing, illustrating and publishing a book. Whatever ends up happening, I will not hold it against any author/illustrator/publisher.
WF does not host any copyrighted files on our servers. Legally speaking, some rando out there is purchasing, converting, and sharing these files on MEGA, and sending the links to me printed on 8.5” x 11” card stock via anonymous, untracable postage. I simply share the links I receive. You may contact MEGA to have these links taken down.
WF is hosted in a jurisdiction that most likely will disregard your DMCA.
WF's admin is located in a jurisdiction that will most likely ignore any legal contact.
I have always wanted to find ways to support Occult and Esoteric authors and publishers in a way that does not conflict with the manifesto below. I am open to ideas from members/authors/publishers on how I can help support them in other ways than simply not sharing these weird links to PDFs that some alien is sending me.
Book Sharing Manifesto:
As the name of this subject betrays, occult knowledge is by nature obscured, censored, and difficult to find. While that sanctions all due respect and praise to occult authors, illustrators, publishers, and anyone else who dedicates time, money, and hard work towards creating and distributing occult knowledge, it also validates our crusade to make all of this content even more accessible and available. I am sorry, but I just feel too strongly that it is our duty to propogate this material as widely as possible.
If you can afford to pay for the books you have obtained, read, and enjoyed from WF, then you must purchase them (at least the digital versions). It is your absolute duty to do so.
Authors/publishers: please understand — 99% of the people who download free PDFs of your books would never have purchased them. For many, it is simply too difficult to match their desire to learn and absorb this knowledge with their ability to finance it. Does that really mean they do not deserve to lay their eyes upon the content of your books? Do you truly believe that? Do you want to extinguish that flame? Please have mercy.
If anything, many of those who would not have otherwise purchased a single book, may download 100, and fall in love with one, which then they would purchase. I truly cannot believe the premise that sharing PDFs online significantly impacts your bottom line as publishers/authors.
I will try to be more diligent about providing links to purchase the books that are linked here. I may even institute a rule that compels anyone sharing MEGA links to PDFs to find and share the link to the digital download of said book.
When/if WF ever becomes profitable, I swear on my name, I will make suitable donations to authors/publishers who are featured here, and/or who make exceptional occult publications. I recognize that this is unlikely to directly compensate for the volume of downloaded PDFs if tallied, but I hope it will mean something, especially in light of points 3 and 4 of the manifesto.
Going forward, I will never paywall/time-lock any downloads of book PDFs to upgraded user accounts (with the exception of large collections/archives such as the WF grand library, which I don't expect to gain any copyright attention anyway).
Please... members... authors... publishers... anyone... share your thoughts with me. Am I completely in the wrong? Is there no wiggle room in the morality of sharing this knowledge? I am open to feedback, and open to having my mind changed, but please do so respectfully and logically. I do not want to make this about legality. Frankly – and judge me all you want for this – I do not give a single fuck about the legality of any of these issues, and even if I did, as I mentioned above in the Admin Statement, there are no copyrighted content hosted on WF's servers. We are merely sharing content that has been hosted by others and shared on the internet. This is more about morality, philosophy, and understanding each other. Please help me understand your viewpoints.
I feel that I'm too biased against modern content to give a relatable opinion, but I will say this:
This is your forum and it is entirely up to your discretion, and I strongly suggest that you thoroughly weigh the Risk vs. Reward on your own terms.
I don't know how vulnerable you and this server would be to legal action and etc. and neither does anyone else here, because this is a very location-specific matter. Only you know the laws and vulnerabilities of your jurisdiction, and it is your privilege to assess the odds and make your decision accordingly.
If you like your odds, that's great, continue your current policy.
But if you worry that you and this server will die on this hill, every member would(or should) respect your decision to cease.
I'm sure the forum would live on just fine afterwards.
On a side note, I think it is a shame how many authors don't understand how propagation of their material, even when materials are shared freely, is often helpful in many cases.
For many years, I've been somewhat considering writing my own treatise on the black side of Elemental Magic, and maybe even creating my own site (less of a forum, more of a school) - and in the case that I did, I have always been of the perspective that the sharing of my work would be a positive thing.
It expands the potential audience without any effort on my part, and it would get more eyes on my material, and that will always bring with it the possibility for more revenue.
Another example was my experience with Bardon's IIH.
When I got my hands on a pdf of that book many years ago, I was so impressed by its content, that I shelled out 100 dollars buying a rare hard-cover copy of it for myself. To this day, I feel it was worth every penny.
Most people are willing to contribute to the Author if they like what they see. While there will be some people who will cheap out given the opportunity, I do not feel this is the majority.
And even then, those who don't pay are still likely to share that content with others, who may be less scummy than the former and eventually buy it.
For these reasons, I find it hard to understand why authors, especially ones that are on the smaller end, would choose to fight this fight. They're sabotaging the free opportunity to attract a larger following.
This is a matter of tactics vs strategy, and while it may seem like good tactics to fight the sharing of your work for short-term financial benefit, I certainly feel it is bad strategy in the bigger picture.
I can't help but think that authors that take this course of action must have some insecurities about their work, where they know that their content is forgettable or unimpressive and not worth the buy, so they must try to force a purchase because most people aren't willing to refund and will accept their losses.
The Bible, Al-Qur'an Al-Kareem, Bardon's IIH, Fortune's and Crowley's works, have all been online for many years, yet people around the world still buy them to get the opportunity to hold them in their very hands.
If your content is worth buying, it will be bought, I say.
And publicity is just free advertising.
But when you restrict your audience with policies focused on exclusivity, you're putting your work at great risk to the mercy of the few people who are willing to take the plunge and buy it. And when your work has but a small handful of negative reviews from people who bought it not knowing what they're receiving and ending up disappointed, that can be the death of your "career" already.
Nonetheless, modern Author's are free to exercise their rights if they really feel it is the best course of action - and you, as the owner of this site, are free to follow the policy that you feel is in your best interest as well.
Like in all feilds of study, most occult books out there are trash. If I read it in pirated version and its worth buying I will. If it's not, it's not.
Because I couldn't find a good pirated version of Kraigs modern magick I didn't bought the physical version until 2021. The middle ground would be to have a free and paid version for ebooks and a paid physical version.
I can state now that Josephine McCarthy is a visionary when it comes to this. She uses this model to share her work.
If someone likes a book when they can afford it they will buy it in the physical version. At least that's my thought process.
My kindle rant:
Many authors nowadays only publish in kindle and physical version, and not in pdf anymore. I personally hate kindle because I can't use Text to speech software to read my books. Every time I get a kindle ebook on Amazon I have to "convert" it into a pdf which is annoying because you already bought it, yet it's not really yours because you can't download or read it offline without having a damn kindle or the Amazon app with you.
Tough one, I see the points others are making, more or less comparing it to Ice-T's statement about cassette tapes having been good for the music industry. But i disagree.
To me personally a digital version of (any) book feels worthless, unless it's something that has been out of print for 100 years or so (like the stuff on archive.org) and i have never bought a digital copy of anything. Might be my age but I want physical books to flip through, yet if it's free (and digital) and I have read it like that then why would I buy the physical copy afterwards?
As a person who really enjoys printed books, I'd take a paper copy of any of them anytime over a pdf. However, the fact of the matter is that a lot of books are extremely rare or unavailable, expensive to purchase and deliver and prone to being damaged unless stored properly. Electronic preservation and sharing of knowledge is vital, decentralized one preferably, meaning P2P sharing. It's great to see people dedicated to that. Also, I've came upon this forum while searching for a book, so there's that.
But when it comes to publishers, I don't think any appeal to mercy will have an effect. Most of the publishing companies are just profit-seeking algorithms, mercy is outside of their MO. You have to be legally and technically prepared to oppose them, make pursuing you unprofitable.
Tough one, I see the points others are making, more or less comparing it to Ice-T's statement about cassette tapes having been good for the music industry. But i disagree.
To me personally a digital version of (any) book feels worthless, unless it's something that has been out of print for 100 years or so (like the stuff on archive.org) and i have never bought a digital copy of anything. Might be my age but I want physical books to flip through, yet if it's free (and digital) and I have read it like that then why would I buy the physical copy afterwards?
By all means, this matter is certainly a double-edged sword.
On one hand, I can understand Authors wanting to make sure they are being paid for their work, but on the other hand, I also understand the potential benefits of free distribution.
It is difficult for anyone to know what the right move is, especially when success is so often in the hands of luck.
Personally speaking, if I discovered my work being distributed somewhere, I probably would not have it taken down - but I would strongly insist that they provide links to the website I would be associated with myself if I have one, or the vendors which sell my work, so that it may be bought.
I would be willing to take that chance of reaching a wider audience with this policy even if that means it being distributed to some cheapskates who have no intention of buying it ever - however the very least I could do is make sure that it can be easily found and paid for wherever it is being shared (and it is also the least that those sharing can do to show respect for the Authors whose work they share).
On the other hand, if I were in Skull's position, I would probably handle this in a straightforward, case-by-case manner.
If someone complains about their particular work being shared, then fine, that particular work will be removed - no more, no less.
No need to force an issue for questionable gain.
I sincerely doubt the single work of a modern practitioner going missing from the internet is going to bury the fate of occultism and the community. Most modern stuff is just watered-down versions of old stuff anyways.
Admittedly I'd have to agree with frsfmcs - I don't have a very high opinion of most of the works out there, it often seems like the blind trying to lead the blind.
Yet there are plenty of great works from those that came before us that have proven themselves thoroughly and stood the test of time as they became the persistent core of many occult communities(or Orders. Lodges, etc.) even to this day, and they will always be available to share. So no matter what, there will always be solid foundations and sources of education for occult communities, regardless of whether modern Authors make it onto that boat or not.
I like it the way it is, a library. What if I were to dump 3000 worth of books into the library drop slot? They go on the shelf which is more likely to have someone find it.
Will they return it? Probably not. Would I raise a finger about it? No, because someone really found it useful.
Isn't that point afterall?
Libraries replace books that don't get returned anyway. It's my point that libraries would have your book fall into the right hands.
I've been a network administrator since 1996. I started out with an ISP providing dialup, and our company has evolved to being an MSP with a huge focus on security. In the course of my job, I've worked probably hundreds of subpoenas, mostly hate or harassment oriented, but also "pirated content" type subpoenas, DCMA takedowns, etc. I have direct experience with DCMA take downs in the US. (***** However, I am NOT a lawyer, and laws change all the time, disclaimer disclaimer *****).
Some of you know me enough to know I'm blunt and sometimes I come across a bit strong. Please know that 99% of the time, I'm just going for clarity, not offense. I write so much technical documentation, it's takes all I have to not bullet point everything.
The DCMA generally has protections for hosts, so that they can't be held accountable for what a user posts. The DCMA is US law and is not (directly) enforceable outside of the US, however most large hosts that do business and have offices in the US are still legally required to follow US law. In addition to that, many major hosts in countries the US is friendly with almost always respond to DCMA requests.
The IP in use for the site is registered in the US. The ARIN org that the IP is registered to is in California (and Arizona). The web site for your host literally says it's a US company. Even the domain is registered through a US provider. That means in an extreme situation, though not very likely, your domain can be seized. It does not matter if the forum owner lives outside of the US as far as a site takedown is concerned.
Even if the forum owner is in a country that doesn't respond to DCMA requests, most countries of the world are part of one or more treatise which include copyright protections (See for example:
), and depending on how much time and money the publisher wants to spend, you could still be held legally accountable.
There is also a general misunderstanding here regarding S230 of the CDA, which provides a lot of protection for content providers. If a user of WF posts something that's copyrighted, the forum host/owner almost never has any liability, but there are subtle things you can do that can still make you liable.
For example, you can't claim to be just a provider if you are the one posting the links. If someone else posts something that could potentially be illegal, you would generally have no liability, but if you EDIT that post and make any meaningful changes to anything in the post, you are now essentially a publisher and no longer a host. There are a lot of little gotchas like this that can potentially remove your protection as a host.
At the end of the day, I know we've had this discussion before, and I am still wondering - is it worth it? Peter Gray is actually being very nice here. Maybe he's a fan of parts of the site? Why not try to work with publishers like that. Instead of bringing people to WF to download books, bring people to WF with unique content brought by partnerships with authors and publishers instead. Why even bother being in the grey area? The next publisher may not be so nice, and if the site gets big enough, it will definitely draw attention from other publishers.
You're ultimately right. This is a small site right now, and I can't imagine anyone's going to spend a lot of resources going after a link. I feel like that shouldn't really be the driving factor, tho. There's ethics and morality here, or if you prefer, karma. Do you want Scarlet to publish more books? I do. I'm actually a big fan and am happy I own some of their books.
In full disclosure, I used to be a serial book downloader. Then my wife published a short story, and I started talking to authors. Honestly, I figured most authors were financially secure, much more money than I would ever have, but the reality is actually pretty grim. Most authors can't write as a full time job. Most celebrate a single purchase of their book, because it doesn't happen very often. There is no value placed on the author anymore, even if that author spent literally years of their life working on a single book.
i have been in a similar pickle with a seller from ebay about occult books being sold for 1000s of dollars. talking about legality online seems moot to me at this point, there is too much leeway on all sides.
concerning the morality, philosophy and understanding i had a talk with the spirits involved as well as that i had contacted the publishers and writers souls. in my case the spirits found it too complex of a matter and the souls decided to gamble and go 777 and to each their own. so sort of we all prayed and hoped for the best.
i think that indeed the legality is not the point and to stand for the rest you need to be strong and hold on to your truth. i remember stating somewhere in the beginning of wf that im here to defend freedom of speech and freedom of knowledge is part of that.
publishers and writers of occult books are aware and use the spirits involved to gain money. they also know we live with the internet and people who care to share. so if and when their spirits dont object to that, but instead the humans are complaining to occult peers about sharing knowledge, it is a them problem and not ours. they should up their internet skills instead of throwing legal terms that make no sense to anyone. we all can play the boogie man.
Earlier this year, I received WF's first DMCA takedown notice (I only noticed it today) on a copyrighted material shared in Book Shares . To be completely frank, I wasn't expecting attention this early in WF's new timeline. About a months into the new WF's book shares section launching, I saw (do not ask me how) that Steve Savedow browsed WF. He didn't contact me regarding any of his books shared here, and honestly, we only have 2000 members, of which probably only 50-100 are really active... so I was shocked to see that a publisher thought it fitting to send me a DMCA. I am going to share the content of the notice below, and address the points I'd like to counter, as well as some other points.
I think it is time for a manifesto.
Here's the notice from Peter Grey of Scarlett Imprint in it's entirety:
I completely hear and understand the wishes of authors and publishers to protect their livelihood. I am a creative by trade, and I understand the amount of work that goes into researching, writing, illustrating and publishing a book. Whatever ends up happening, I will not hold it against any author/illustrator/publisher.
WF does not host any copyrighted files on our servers. Legally speaking, some rando out there is purchasing, converting, and sharing these files on MEGA, and sending the links to me printed on 8.5” x 11” card stock via anonymous, untracable postage. I simply share the links I receive. You may contact MEGA to have these links taken down.
WF is hosted in a jurisdiction that most likely will disregard your DMCA.
WF's admin is located in a jurisdiction that will most likely ignore any legal contact.
I have always wanted to find ways to support Occult and Esoteric authors and publishers in a way that does not conflict with the manifesto below. I am open to ideas from members/authors/publishers on how I can help support them in other ways than simply not sharing these weird links to PDFs that some alien is sending me.
Book Sharing Manifesto:
As the name of this subject betrays, occult knowledge is by nature obscured, censored, and difficult to find. While that sanctions all due respect and praise to occult authors, illustrators, publishers, and anyone else who dedicates time, money, and hard work towards creating and distributing occult knowledge, it also validates our crusade to make all of this content even more accessible and available. I am sorry, but I just feel too strongly that it is our duty to propogate this material as widely as possible.
If you can afford to pay for the books you have obtained, read, and enjoyed from WF, then you must purchase them (at least the digital versions). It is your absolute duty to do so.
Authors/publishers: please understand — 99% of the people who download free PDFs of your books would never have purchased them. For many, it is simply too difficult to match their desire to learn and absorb this knowledge with their ability to finance it. Does that really mean they do not deserve to lay their eyes upon the content of your books? Do you truly believe that? Do you want to extinguish that flame? Please have mercy.
If anything, many of those who would not have otherwise purchased a single book, may download 100, and fall in love with one, which then they would purchase. I truly cannot believe the premise that sharing PDFs online significantly impacts your bottom line as publishers/authors.
I will try to be more diligent about providing links to purchase the books that are linked here. I may even institute a rule that compels anyone sharing MEGA links to PDFs to find and share the link to the digital download of said book.
When/if WF ever becomes profitable, I swear on my name, I will make suitable donations to authors/publishers who are featured here, and/or who make exceptional occult publications. I recognize that this is unlikely to directly compensate for the volume of downloaded PDFs if tallied, but I hope it will mean something, especially in light of points 3 and 4 of the manifesto.
Going forward, I will never paywall/time-lock any downloads of book PDFs to upgraded user accounts (with the exception of large collections/archives such as the WF grand library, which I don't expect to gain any copyright attention anyway).
Please... members... authors... publishers... anyone... share your thoughts with me. Am I completely in the wrong? Is there no wiggle room in the morality of sharing this knowledge? I am open to feedback, and open to having my mind changed, but please do so respectfully and logically. I do not want to make this about legality. Frankly – and judge me all you want for this – I do not give a single fuck about the legality of any of these issues, and even if I did, as I mentioned above in the Admin Statement, there are no copyrighted content hosted on WF's servers. We are merely sharing content that has been hosted by others and shared on the internet. This is more about morality, philosophy, and understanding each other. Please help me understand your viewpoints.
I have pretty specific thoughts about this. You pretty well covered though, but since you asked for feedback, I will share them anyways.
Every practitioner I personally know WANTS a physical copy of the books that speak to them.
While some books are out of print and exorbitantly priced on the second hand market, other newer books still in print might be more accessible.
Despite being accessible, there is a plethora of titles available. Not all of them are beneficial.
If someone is going to buy your book, they will do regardless of whether they had obtained a free pdf online.
People who download the pdf and don't end up buying the book later would have never bought the book anyways most likely.
Of course there are exceptions, as with anything. Overall this mentality seems to be the typical one I run into.
So in short I seriously doubt free PDFs cause significant harm to authors or publishers, at least in this community.
I might even go as far as to say that I believe it may even ultimately be for their benefit.
There are several books I would have never purchased outright had I not had the opportunity to read them first. But because I did, I purchased them, and was happy to do so.
I personally feel the ones who ask to remove there books, that request should be honored. We are in the journey together. I feel they asked instead of seeking legal action. I get they are in business to make money.
Post automatically merged:
Though an additional point. I agree with you those who download these for free will not buy a copy in the first place. So I agree the information should be share and not kept.
I have bought some books, and I will probably be buying more in the future. How can I know if I want to buy a book?
Reviews: Not good enough. I don't expect other people to agree with me 100% of the time, so turnabout is fair play.
Kindle Previews: Yes, this can work but only if the asking price for a digital book is reasonable. Seriously, it doesn't cost anything to make digital duplicates, and I'm not about to pay more than US$10 per book for the privilege of looking at pixels on my monitor or Kindle device.
The nature of obscure books: I probably would have never known your book even exists without it appearing in the WF library. I might decide I like it enough to buy a copy.
The fact that many authors have died: Who exactly am I harming? Their work may not be in the public domain in some countries. There may be no officially published digital copies. Used physical copies might be hard to come by. Who exactly am I harming?
The fact that many books I download aren't even worth finishing: I used to go to the local bookstore and browse the shelves in sections that interested me. And I would often buy books after being able to look all through them from beginning to end, knowing exactly what I was getting. But most of the books I looked through went back on the shelves.
In the end, I'm under no illusions that authors and publishers will change their minds, nor will governments suddenly change laws.
I agree that there is just no real good way to be able to know if you're going to enjoy a book before you purchase it, unless you go to a B&M and find a copy of the book there to riffle through. I have gone through many occult books that I've purchased due to a beautiful cover or glowing review from someone like Foolish Fish and then been thoroughly disappointed by the content.
This is a very valid point that I forgot about in the original post.
1. I will typically want a pdf of any physical book I legally own. If it’s out there I’ll find it and get it.
2. checking out the pdf of a book will often lead to me buying the physical book as well. Then I’ll have physical and pdf and support the creator.
3. If I don’t like the book, I wasn’t going to be a happy customer anyway. Delete pdf. Books aren’t easy to return and better for the creator I not buy the book than tell everyone else to not buy it.
4. piracy happens. Will probably always happen. Fighting against the sliver of people who pirate isn’t worth pissing off a larger percentage of people who don’t.
5. The existence of a thing entitles no one to have access to it. The creator has every right to make their content as exclusive and elite as they like. Limit your market. I don’t care. Creators/publishers have every right to protect their content how they see fit. (Refer to #4)
I feel that I'm too biased against modern content to give a relatable opinion, but I will say this:
This is your forum and it is entirely up to your discretion, and I strongly suggest that you thoroughly weigh the Risk vs. Reward on your own terms.
I don't know how vulnerable you and this server would be to legal action and etc. and neither does anyone else here, because this is a very location-specific matter. Only you know the laws and vulnerabilities of your jurisdiction, and it is your privilege to assess the odds and make your decision accordingly.
If you like your odds, that's great, continue your current policy.
But if you worry that you and this server will die on this hill, every member would(or should) respect your decision to cease.
I'm sure the forum would live on just fine afterwards.
On a side note, I think it is a shame how many authors don't understand how propagation of their material, even when materials are shared freely, is often helpful in many cases.
For many years, I've been somewhat considering writing my own treatise on the black side of Elemental Magic, and maybe even creating my own site (less of a forum, more of a school) - and in the case that I did, I have always been of the perspective that the sharing of my work would be a positive thing.
It expands the potential audience without any effort on my part, and it would get more eyes on my material, and that will always bring with it the possibility for more revenue.
Another example was my experience with Bardon's IIH.
When I got my hands on a pdf of that book many years ago, I was so impressed by its content, that I shelled out 100 dollars buying a rare hard-cover copy of it for myself. To this day, I feel it was worth every penny.
Most people are willing to contribute to the Author if they like what they see. While there will be some people who will cheap out given the opportunity, I do not feel this is the majority.
And even then, those who don't pay are still likely to share that content with others, who may be less scummy than the former and eventually buy it.
For these reasons, I find it hard to understand why authors, especially ones that are on the smaller end, would choose to fight this fight. They're sabotaging the free opportunity to attract a larger following.
This is a matter of tactics vs strategy, and while it may seem like good tactics to fight the sharing of your work for short-term financial benefit, I certainly feel it is bad strategy in the bigger picture.
I can't help but think that authors that take this course of action must have some insecurities about their work, where they know that their content is forgettable or unimpressive and not worth the buy, so they must try to force a purchase because most people aren't willing to refund and will accept their losses.
The Bible, Al-Qur'an Al-Kareem, Bardon's IIH, Fortune's and Crowley's works, have all been online for many years, yet people around the world still buy them to get the opportunity to hold them in their very hands.
If your content is worth buying, it will be bought, I say.
And publicity is just free advertising.
But when you restrict your audience with policies focused on exclusivity, you're putting your work at great risk to the mercy of the few people who are willing to take the plunge and buy it. And when your work has but a small handful of negative reviews from people who bought it not knowing what they're receiving and ending up disappointed, that can be the death of your "career" already.
Nonetheless, modern Author's are free to exercise their rights if they really feel it is the best course of action - and you, as the owner of this site, are free to follow the policy that you feel is in your best interest as well.
Don't worry. There is no risk. The worst that will happen is I will be compelled to delete individual threads or the whole book section. But that will take a lot of effort from publishers, and we're not even remotely close to being big enough for that to be a financially sound endeavor. And like you say, I'm sure the forum will live on fine even if that happens... and I'll know I did my best.
I agree, it's a real shame that an author/publisher would nag me over a book that has clearly been downloaded only 12 times, not understanding that it will probably lead to more sales of that book than if it wasn't shared. Of course, everyone thinks differently, and if they truly believe they've put in a tremendous amount of work into the book, and are worried that they won't see a return on their investment, I do understand that sentiment.
Also that's a good point about the insecurities in their work. I think it's especially true for "rehashed" works, like the Red Goddess.
Regardless, they can feel how they feel, and I can feel how I feel. They can take what they deem to be appropriate action, and I will hold my ground for as far as it is feasible for me. At the same time, I do want to be able to somehow support "good" work. Perhaps one day I'll figure out a way.
Like in all feilds of study, most occult books out there are trash. If I read it in pirated version and its worth buying I will. If it's not, it's not.
Because I couldn't find a good pirated version of Kraigs modern magick I didn't bought the physical version until 2021. The middle ground would be to have a free and paid version for ebooks and a paid physical version.
I can state now that Josephine McCarthy is a visionary when it comes to this. She uses this model to share her work.
If someone likes a book when they can afford it they will buy it in the physical version. At least that's my thought process.
My kindle rant:
Many authors nowadays only publish in kindle and physical version, and not in pdf anymore. I personally hate kindle because I can't use Text to speech software to read my books. Every time I get a kindle ebook on Amazon I have to "convert" it into a pdf which is annoying because you already bought it, yet it's not really yours because you can't download or read it offline without having a damn kindle or the Amazon app with you.
Tough one, I see the points others are making, more or less comparing it to Ice-T's statement about cassette tapes having been good for the music industry. But i disagree.
To me personally a digital version of (any) book feels worthless, unless it's something that has been out of print for 100 years or so (like the stuff on archive.org) and i have never bought a digital copy of anything. Might be my age but I want physical books to flip through, yet if it's free (and digital) and I have read it like that then why would I buy the physical copy afterwards?
That just seems like a contradiction to me. If digital books are worthless, then they are not worth buying, so then there is no loss in them being shared for free. Just feels like you enjoy the benefits of piracy, but don't want it to be endorsed to the masses. If it's free, and you read it, and that somehow prevents you from buying the book, then that means you gained something from the free PDF, so it is not worthless, and it's your own moral choice to not buy the book and support the creator. I take no moral blame for that.
As a person who really enjoys printed books, I'd take a paper copy of any of them anytime over a pdf. However, the fact of the matter is that a lot of books are extremely rare or unavailable, expensive to purchase and deliver and prone to being damaged unless stored properly. Electronic preservation and sharing of knowledge is vital, decentralized one preferably, meaning P2P sharing. It's great to see people dedicated to that. Also, I've came upon this forum while searching for a book, so there's that.
But when it comes to publishers, I don't think any appeal to mercy will have an effect. Most of the publishing companies are just profit-seeking algorithms, mercy is outside of their MO. You have to be legally and technically prepared to oppose them, make pursuing you unprofitable.
To be fair, WF Shares is full of in-print and easily accessible books (aside from cost). So I can't use that reasoning as a crutch. But I do agree that preservation, archival and sharing is vital.
And yes, you make a good point. The book shares bring a lot of members to the site. I feel somewhat alone in my corner when it comes to this point, as I feel like there are some members who don't fully understand how vital it is for the community itself to have an influx of new members, and the most effective way to do that is with book shares. I have poured 1000s of dollars into WF already, and I am happy to do that. But I don't want to 3-5x my expenses by having to burn money in advertising costs.
People say "wouldn't it be better to just have good quality posts and use that to attract new members, rather than sharing books" while rarely if ever making said "good quality posts". It's easy to make those kinds of suggestions when you lose nothing if the forum dies. For most members here, if new members stopped joining, and the forum slowly died, they wouldn't care. Just never log in again and forget about the site.
For me, it's a lot more personal. I have a mission here. That mission is to spread occult knowledge. I'm ok with sinking money and free time into this project, but I'll be a little cutthroat when I have to, in the service of growing the community and furthering my vision.
I am most certainly legally and technically prepared to oppose them. I just wonder if what I am doing is truly, fundamentally wrong. That's the only thing I want to be sure of, or am afraid of.
By all means, this matter is certainly a double-edged sword.
On one hand, I can understand Authors wanting to make sure they are being paid for their work, but on the other hand, I also understand the potential benefits of free distribution.
It is difficult for anyone to know what the right move is, especially when success is so often in the hands of luck.
Personally speaking, if I discovered my work being distributed somewhere, I probably would not have it taken down - but I would strongly insist that they provide links to the website I would be associated with myself if I have one, or the vendors which sell my work, so that it may be bought.
I would be willing to take that chance of reaching a wider audience with this policy even if that means it being distributed to some cheapskates who have no intention of buying it ever - however the very least I could do is make sure that it can be easily found and paid for wherever it is being shared (and it is also the least that those sharing can do to show respect for the Authors whose work they share).
On the other hand, if I were in Skull's position, I would probably handle this in a straightforward, case-by-case manner.
If someone complains about their particular work being shared, then fine, that particular work will be removed - no more, no less.
No need to force an issue for questionable gain.
I sincerely doubt the single work of a modern practitioner going missing from the internet is going to bury the fate of occultism and the community. Most modern stuff is just watered-down versions of old stuff anyways.
Admittedly I'd have to agree with frsfmcs - I don't have a very high opinion of most of the works out there, it often seems like the blind trying to lead the blind.
Yet there are plenty of great works from those that came before us that have proven themselves thoroughly and stood the test of time as they became the persistent core of many occult communities(or Orders. Lodges, etc.) even to this day, and they will always be available to share. So no matter what, there will always be solid foundations and sources of education for occult communities, regardless of whether modern Authors make it onto that boat or not.
I will do more to provide links to purchase pages of books, and to help promote authors and publishers. I should do that, really. It's only fair.
The point about many core and source materials already being free and in the public domain is correct. However if my goal is to make magick and the occult as accessible as possible, to the largest audience possible then I think there are some hidden (if rehashed) gems in modern occult publishing.
I've been a network administrator since 1996. I started out with an ISP providing dialup, and our company has evolved to being an MSP with a huge focus on security. In the course of my job, I've worked probably hundreds of subpoenas, mostly hate or harassment oriented, but also "pirated content" type subpoenas, DCMA takedowns, etc. I have direct experience with DCMA take downs in the US. (***** However, I am NOT a lawyer, and laws change all the time, disclaimer disclaimer *****).
Some of you know me enough to know I'm blunt and sometimes I come across a bit strong. Please know that 99% of the time, I'm just going for clarity, not offense. I write so much technical documentation, it's takes all I have to not bullet point everything.
The DCMA generally has protections for hosts, so that they can't be held accountable for what a user posts. The DCMA is US law and is not (directly) enforceable outside of the US, however most large hosts that do business and have offices in the US are still legally required to follow US law. In addition to that, many major hosts in countries the US is friendly with almost always respond to DCMA requests.
The IP in use for the site is registered in the US. The ARIN org that the IP is registered to is in California (and Arizona). The web site for your host literally says it's a US company. Even the domain is registered through a US provider. That means in an extreme situation, though not very likely, your domain can be seized. It does not matter if the forum owner lives outside of the US as far as a site takedown is concerned.
Even if the forum owner is in a country that doesn't respond to DCMA requests, most countries of the world are part of one or more treatise which include copyright protections (See for example:
), and depending on how much time and money the publisher wants to spend, you could still be held legally accountable.
There is also a general misunderstanding here regarding S230 of the CDA, which provides a lot of protection for content providers. If a user of WF posts something that's copyrighted, the forum host/owner almost never has any liability, but there are subtle things you can do that can still make you liable.
For example, you can't claim to be just a provider if you are the one posting the links. If someone else posts something that could potentially be illegal, you would generally have no liability, but if you EDIT that post and make any meaningful changes to anything in the post, you are now essentially a publisher and no longer a host. There are a lot of little gotchas like this that can potentially remove your protection as a host.
At the end of the day, I know we've had this discussion before, and I am still wondering - is it worth it? Peter Gray is actually being very nice here. Maybe he's a fan of parts of the site? Why not try to work with publishers like that. Instead of bringing people to WF to download books, bring people to WF with unique content brought by partnerships with authors and publishers instead. Why even bother being in the grey area? The next publisher may not be so nice, and if the site gets big enough, it will definitely draw attention from other publishers.
You're ultimately right. This is a small site right now, and I can't imagine anyone's going to spend a lot of resources going after a link. I feel like that shouldn't really be the driving factor, tho. There's ethics and morality here, or if you prefer, karma. Do you want Scarlet to publish more books? I do. I'm actually a big fan and am happy I own some of their books.
In full disclosure, I used to be a serial book downloader. Then my wife published a short story, and I started talking to authors. Honestly, I figured most authors were financially secure, much more money than I would ever have, but the reality is actually pretty grim. Most authors can't write as a full time job. Most celebrate a single purchase of their book, because it doesn't happen very often. There is no value placed on the author anymore, even if that author spent literally years of their life working on a single book.
I'll do my absolute best to protect the domain. Since it is a .com, it faces higher scrutiny than, oh, idk, .so or something. However, don't think that I haven't already thought about the potential consequences, or restrictions I may face. I have a very good relationship with both my hosting and domain provider, and it is after listening to their advice that I decided to not host any pirated material on WF.
As for the morality part: do you really think the fraction of people who download PDFs who if the PDF was not available would have bought the book outweighs the fraction of people who wouldn't have bought the book until they read the PDF? If so, either the book is very shitty, or those people are very shitty.
IDK if Peter Gray is being "very nice". Nicer than he needs to be, but it's not like he suggested any of what you said about "unique content partnerships". Those ideas have already crossed my mind, and I know without a significan investment, or a significant userbase (which requires significant investment) no punlisher/author would ever consider making quality contributions to a small forum.
It's fine that you have gone through the mental and philosophical endeavour to come to the conclusion that piracy is bad. I don't have a wife who published a book, and I haven't wirtten or published mine yet. Maybe when that happens I will be more aligned with your moral view on this (I still doubt it, but I won't know until it happens), but until then I still feel justified that propogating material on WF leads to either negligable loss or possibly even long term benefits to genuine authors/publishers who put out good work.
I have pretty specific thoughts about this. You pretty well covered though, but since you asked for feedback, I will share them anyways.
Every practitioner I personally know WANTS a physical copy of the books that speak to them.
While some books are out of print and exorbitantly priced on the second hand market, other newer books still in print might be more accessible.
Despite being accessible, there is a plethora of titles available. Not all of them are beneficial.
If someone is going to buy your book, they will do regardless of whether they had obtained a free pdf online.
People who download the pdf and don't end up buying the book later would have never bought the book anyways most likely.
Of course there are exceptions, as with anything. Overall this mentality seems to be the typical one I run into.
So in short I seriously doubt free PDFs cause significant harm to authors or publishers, at least in this community.
I might even go as far as to say that I believe it may even ultimately be for their benefit.
There are several books I would have never purchased outright had I not had the opportunity to read them first. But because I did, I purchased them, and was happy to do so.
I personally feel the ones who ask to remove there books, that request should be honored. We are in the journey together. I feel they asked instead of seeking legal action. I get they are in business to make money.
Post automatically merged:
Though an additional point. I agree with you those who download these for free will not buy a copy in the first place. So I agree the information should be share and not kept.
I may cave in and remove books on a case-by-case basis. I'm still somewhat undecided. I need more time to think about it.
I wonder if I should keep the thread open until an author/publisher gives in and comments with their perspective. But even if not, I greatly appreciate and respect all of you for weighing in and sharing your thoughts with me. I look forward to a continued discussion on the subject until I can completely make up my mind.
Giggled at the B&M .. quite a fitting description in my neck of the woods, apparently the staff is afraid to clean the bathrooms....although I encountered the same in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Ann Arbor. Lol.
It reminds me of the PopCopy Dave Chapelle skit, "You earned your English degree, and work at B&M - you dont have to take **** from nobody.."
If books are to be removed, I would request the Shemhaphoresh Masonic Lodge paper be kept.
I personally like the try before you buy approach. However, as others have found success with systems where I have not, I will still buy the books.
Now, it's not so simple for me to do so. Case in point - nuked credit, no bank, dead end jobs with minuscule wages makes it rather difficult for me.
However, I have made a vow to get my 2000+ amazon shipment order, which include several books as well as incense and oil supplies.
My point is, I will buy the books, but dont expect it this year, but I will buy them. I need time to build up savings to buy your works.
I really need to look at the amount of books I'd buy, it will take years, but I will build up my lost library.
seems like a contradiction to me. If digital books are worthless, then they are not worth buying, so then there is no loss in them being shared for free. Just feels like you enjoy the benefits of piracy, but don't want it to be endorsed to the masses
Might be a contradiction I don't know.
Bringing up the cassette tape again: if the copy is bad (like a poorly scanned one) then I can see how it would want people to buy the physical book.
If it's a quality pdf, with all pages, illustrations etc, you can use ctrl-F in it and it's free then I see absolutely no logic in buying a physical copy. Other than to post pictures of my bookshelf for Reddit karma. But that's me.
Like as if somebody pays for a (porn) video nowadays. You have seen it online, you like it and probably watch the same video multiple times. Why not pay for it?
I have downloaded a couple of free pdf's because I had read some people raving about it. They're on my phone, I look through them when i download and then forget them. A physical copy, even if I don't like it at first, will get read more.
As for my opinion on it being endorsed to the masses: I really don't care about what the masses do.
Bringing up the cassette tape again: if the copy is bad (like a poorly scanned one) then I can see how it would want people to buy the physical book.
If it's a quality pdf, with all pages, illustrations etc, you can use ctrl-F in it and it's free then I see absolutely no logic in buying a physical copy. Other than to post pictures of my bookshelf for Reddit karma. But that's me.
That's where we are different I guess. I see value in rebuying something I have already pirated in order to support the creator. I do that with books, I do that with games, I do that with software... all kinds of things. I would do it with physical products if I could get away with stealing them first. I see piracy as a free trial. If I end up truly enjoying what I pirate, and if I am able to buy it, I will. Because it has added value to my life, and deserves to be compensated for. That's the difference between morality and legality.
Like as if somebody pays for a (porn) video nowadays. You have seen it online, you like it and probably watch the same video multiple times. Why not pay for it?
It depends. Porn adds so little value to my life that if I ever had to pay for it, I wouldn't watch porn ever again. So me pirating porn is of no loss to the porn industry, because I would have never paid for it in the first place. People who hold that same view on occult books are the same, the industry loses nothing by those people pirating occult PDFs, because they would have never paid for it in the first place.
The only way they lose is when a person who would have paid for something ends up pirating and then decides not to pay for it afterwards even though they enjoyed it. In my view, that person is the asshole. Not me, not other people who pirate. You should know this about me... I have received 3 of your books for free, from you, yet I have purchased each of them even though I already had the free PDF. Why, because my moral code compels me to support good work.
OTOH, I have to say to the new authors on the scene, I feel for you, if you are however an established author Id have to ask you how you rate yourself as a whiner.
OTOH, I have to say to the new authors on the scene, I feel for you, if you are however an established author Id have to ask you how you rate yourself as a whiner.
As for the new ones (and even the more established ones) I think if I could make it a point to advertise and link to their books, that should solve that problem.
savage.