Note that I’m not going to provide any links to the mentioned content here – you can go research yourself. Unlike Wikileaks, I respect others’ copyright.
One thing you may notice on this blog is that while I rarely pipe in with religious thoughts and my own personal religious beliefs (although I used to quite often), I will not hesitate to step in when a Social Media-related religious event occurs. An interesting Groundswell is happening today between the Headquarters of my Faith, and the controversial anonymous sharing site, Wikileaks. However, I don’t think it’s occurring in the way people think it is.
This morning on Slashdot you may have seen an article about the Mormon Church (or “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints“, which is the Official name of the Church) sending a Cease and Desist to Wikileaks for posting links to a Copyrighted, yet old version (1999) of the Church’s “General Handbook of Instructions” for others to freely download.
I don’t understand why this is news. Having been in LDS Bishoprics before as a Clerk and Executive Secretary, I am very familiar with this manual. It is simply a guide for leaders of the Church to know how to council and guide members of the Church, and according to my understanding, NOT (fully) DOCTRINE. It is simply a Policy manual, and while Bishops and other Leaders of the church may follow its council, in the end they are left up to their own judgement (encouraged by the Church “to follow the promptings of the Spirit”) to decide how to handle matters in the Church. The Church considers the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Perl of Great Price to be the Official Doctrine of the Church.
The Mormon Church is simply requesting Wikileaks remove the content because it is their own IP, not Wikileaks, and they are removing it as they would any other Church-owned and copyrighted document. Wikileaks and other sites are also portraying the contents of the manual as though it is doctrine for the general membership of the Mormon church, when in reality it was only intended as a guide for Leaders in the first place. The Mormon church has to protect the dissemination of false information as well.
In Charlene Li’s and Josh Bernoff’s book, Groundswell, she starts out with an example that happened last year on Digg.com where a user shared a blog post about how the HD-DVD Encryption standard had been broken. AACS LA quickly sent a cease and desist to Digg.com and the Digg.com founders promptly removed the link. Before Digg knew it, their own users began to backlash against them, occupying the entire front page of Digg with copies of the HD DVD encryption algorithm. Digg had a Groundswell of its own between its own users and it knew it had to do something. What did they do? They listened to their users and put the link back up, stating they would go down fighting rather than ignore their users.
I think with the post on SlashDot this morning some people may be thinking (and some hoping) a similar Groundswell is going to occur with the Mormon Church. Those that think so will be pleasantly surprised – there’s a difference between a Groundswell of your own members and those outside of your membership talking about you. How do you handle a Groundswell of people outside of your customer-base/user-base/member-base? You get in the conversation!
I want to share with you a video from Elder Russell M. Ballard, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Quorum of 12 Apostles – religious or not, I’d like to encourage you to read this not just from a religious perspective, but also a business perspective and how you can disseminate correct information about your business:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is getting in the Groundswell through its own members. They encourage their members to blog, Twitter, get on Facebook, and clarify misconceptions. The Mormon Church will overcome this Groundswell (if you can even call it one) via its own membership, correcting misinformation Socially rather than through news releases and other means and letting the general media and blogosphere say what it believes. They have a Youtube channel here. They are on Twitter. They have a Facebook Page.
I encourage other churches and even businesses to take this response – there is a lot that can be applied from a religious, or even non-religious perspective from this. When you get your own followers of any business, brand, or religion to spread correct information about your brand it can overcome any misinformation spread about it.
Wikileaks is wrong in this case – they are sharing copyrighted information, not owned by themselves, and without the permission of the owner. The LDS Church isn’t going after them because the shared links are “secret”, but rather it is copyrighted material, and Wikileaks does not have permission to share it! As a book author and software developer I don’t want people using my content without my permission (which I’m generally pretty relaxed on in my personally owned content). Why would I want Wikileaks sharing the content I personally own on their site let alone others?
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Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!
LivSimpl, glad you liked it! Someone should submit it to Slashdot as
another viewpoint (although I doubt they'll post it – they have been pretty
anti-mormon lately).
Just to clarify a bit, WikiLeaks has a link on their site to another site hosting the handbook. I'm not a lawyer but it seems like there should be nothing illegal about this. They also have a couple of excerpts. Again there may be nothing illegal about that. Sadly “fair use” has become a gray area but I think most of us feel like fair use ought to be legal. Excerpts may be used legally and particular protection is given when the except is used in a critical context.
Not nice, but not illegal either. At least it doesn't seem so to me.
The site actually hosting the handbook, on the other hand, is definitely in violation. One of the two sites that had hosted the book has already taken it down.
Andrew, WikiLeaks is still hosting the document – do a search for “handbook
of instructions” on wikileaks and you'll see the linked document – there is
one hosted right on Wikileaks servers, along with excerpts from the
document. Wikileaks is contributing to the copyright infringement, and they
know it.
Ah, I didn't notice that the alternative link was on their own server, either that or it wasn't when I looked this morning. Shame on them.
By the way, the handbook has a section on the use of the Logotype. The image at the top of your post violates the trademark policies. 😉
Exactly. In the usual fashion, the hypocritical, knee-jerk reaction from the common sites on the Internet (Digg, Reddit and the like) will be as strong as usual and next to none of them will think it through.
Ars did, to a small extent, but most other's will not.
Good, succinct post. Random unrelated thing, I got my mission call to the Philippines about 2 weeks ago.
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering 😉
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
Funny thing is I couldn't find an approved logo anywhere in their Press
section – am I not supposed to be using the Logo at all?
Congrats on your mission call anon! I served in Thailand – SE Asia FTW!
The Church wouldn't be pursuing this if they were afraid of secrecy. It is
simply a copyright issue, and WikiLeaks is breaking the law and stealing
someone else's property.
Anon, supported by what facts? Our Church is one of the largest worldwide
donors in the event of disaster and need. They also have one of the largest
welfare programs in the world. With their worldwide presence and strong
understanding of foreign languages they have a unique opportunity to get
money places it normally wouldn't be accepted. Every penny, even the
“widows mite” is accounted for, and audited carefully, and tracked with
great care. I don't get how you can come to my blog, offend my religion,
and say my Church “extracts money from people at their lowest” without any
supporting facts or knowledge. Your knee-jerk reaction is the same response
the likes of WikiLeaks and others are giving to this whole situation.
I was just giving you a hard time. 🙂
I think you're right. Technically this is an infringement of copyright but it is not just a legal issue. The LDS Church is wishy-washy, at best, about copyright enforcement. There's copyrighted material all over the net being looked-over.
In this case, the manual is very widely distributed. The post about it on wikileak seems to err on the side of informational. The Church is not impacted financially. And the Church, unless it is embarrassed about the content, should view its publication as innocuous and harmless from an image point of view.
If they are embarrassed by it, they should say so and change their policies.
So the question then becomes, what really are they trying to protect themselves from?
To my other point. Your use of the logo on an article in defense of their position would never come under the scrutiny of their legal department. At least that's my guess.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory, btw. I'm just trying to see the entire picture. At the very least, you have to admit that the situation raises interesting questions.
I'll tell you what they are trying to protect themselves from. They are trying to protect the leaders who use the handbook from a major headache. As Jesse states, the handbook is a “guide.” While most leaders follow its counsel very closely, they do have the authority to make decisions separately and take into account individual circumstances. One reason the handbook is not distributed to the general membership, is to allow the leaders to maintain their decision-making authority without coming under attack every time they don't precisely follow the handbook.
Another reason is that there are many situations that members should meet with their leaders for counsel. I am sure that many would be tempted to try to resolve or rationalize decisions by simply reading the guidelines in the handbook when they should be seeking counsel from their leaders.
All Excellent points Jared – in a clergy run by the members, a guide like
this is necessary, but only beneficial to those it was written for. It
wasn't written for the general membership, nor is it intended to be doctrine
for them – it is intended to be simply a guide for Leaders, and the
discussion going on here is the exact reason they don't want it
disseminated. When it gets into the public hands it gets taken as doctrine
and scripture when it wasn't intended to be so in the first place. It says
so straight in the first paragraph of the manual that Leaders are to take
the counsel within prayerfully – that means in the end it is up to the
judgement of the leaders, using the book only as a guide. The Guide is not
doctrine, nor was it intended to be so and Wikileaks is making it appear to
be as scripture, intended for the public comsumption.
That's because the logo, in its general sense was intended to be for Public consumption. The General Handbook was not – it was written for leaders, and intended to be used by leaders as a guide. Now that it is in public hands it is being misconstrued as scripture and doctrine rather than just counsel for Leaders. The church has an obligation to request it be taken down in this case.
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
[…] that Trademark issue is a very different issue than the Copyright issue I mentioned before with the Mormon Church and Wikileaks. That issue was about Wikileaks knowingly stealing the content owned by the Mormon Church and using […]
It's curious that you would take an “if they ask me to” attitude toward trademark infringement in the same breath as “Unlike Wikileaks, I respect others’ copyright.”
In reference to use of the logo there's a discussion on tech.lds.org including an official response from the Church. In particular:
http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=384&page=2#17
In short, if you want to use the logo you need to ask permission first. Not being able to find a legal version on the site might have clued you in that they don't want you to use it.
Andrew, you're right – I've removed the logo, per their requirements. I was
unaware of their policy until now.
Jesse
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
Kenjebz, I enjoy your blog! Wow – Mormon Philipinos in Saudi Arabia, that's
quite a combination! I'd love to continue hearing more of your stories
while you're over there.
Thanks for sharing
Regards
Max
http://xtupload.com
very good post Jesse, I think you offered a perfect and succinct synopsis of The Church's inspired course in handling media.
Thanks Elias, to be clear – I did not write this while working for the
Church and it's not the Church's official position or anything.
It's just my opinion, but for me the backlash seemed too expensive…hmm…well I guess any press is good press 🙂
Yea, and look at what they do with that money; they build houses of worship, they are engaged in huge humanitarian aid throughout the world; they help the poor and needy, where basically no one is turned away, in one of the world's most respected welfare programs. In this church, people at their lowest are helped the most and people at their highest give willingly.
Hi nice post Mr. Jesse. Anyway, I hope it is okay to you, I copied part of your blog and posted it in my blogsite and put a link back to your site to read the entire story. http://jbsolis.blogspot.com
Thanks for this great post! You are right!
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.
I will gladly remove it if they ask me to – I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.