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:
Here's what I'd like to say:
WF Admin's Statement:
- 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.