Protecting Copyrights Part 3

Some of those who are inclined to infringe upon A.A.'s copyrights argue that extremely cheap or free A.A. books should be available to anyone, and that if our group conscience is otherwise, they must go ahead on their own and try to produce books that cost less than ours. Let me quote from a letter Bill wrote in 1958 on the subject of cheap books.

"From the point of view of many of the membership, these were powerful arguments. A give-away book was the purest kind of spiritual enterprise. But a volume decently bound and priced within the normal trade range, a volume that would help carry the expenses of A.A.'s Headquarters, was looked upon as a pretty fearsome evil. Consequently, I fell under the severest criticism of my whole A.A. life.

"Yet our history proves that the sometimes idealistic majority of that day was seriously mistaken. Had there been no book earnings for the Headquarters and no royalties for Dr. Bob and me, A.A. would have taken a very different and probably disastrous course. Dr. Bob and Sister lgnatia could not have looked after those 5,000 drunks in their hospital pioneering at Akron. I would have had to quit full-time work fifteen years ago.

"Our book would have been in the hands of an outside publisher. There could have been no Twelve Traditions and no General Service Conference. Financially crippled, the headquarters would not have spread A.A. around the world. Indeed, it might have folded up completely."

Ownership

Everyone in this room, everyone in the world today really, got sober at a time when literature income was helping carry the message. Your board cannot simply say, "Okay rest of the world, you're on your own. Good luck."

We would not be discussing this issue today if Bill and the other old timers had chosen not to copyright the Big Book and other literature and had turned them over to the world at large to do with as it wished. (Of course, as Bill said, there would be no Conference and no Traditions to uphold.) Instead they chose to turn ownership over to the board.

Copyrighted Everything

Note the practical fact that Bill W. copyrighted everything he published, including Warranties Five and Six. Bill was a man of the world who understood the need for and implications of copyrights.

In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age he described how the board became the sole owner of the Big Book, "putting it in trust for our society for all time." We are acting to protect that trust he put in us.

Your Comments
What do you think about Alcoholics Anonymous' efforts to protect its copyrights in Germany? Post your comments on the Forum or send them in an email to BuddyT.