05 January 2012

Authorship

I have been rereading the judgment in Penguin Books USA Inc, Foundation for 'A Course in Miracles' Inc and Foundation for Inner Peace Inc v New Christian Church of Full Endeavor Ltd and Endeavor Academy 55 USPQ2d 1680, 1691 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), following up a student query about Cummins v Bond (1927) 1 Ch. 167 and other cases where the 'authorship' of a work was unsuccessfully attributed to a phantasm or divinity.

In the UK case the court considered a medium's claim to rights in the 'Chronicles' of Cleophas, 'automatic writing' supposedly - via a spirit known as The Messenger - from author Cleophas, who had been a contemporary of Christ and was able to offer 'insider' accounts of events depicted in the Bible. Ms Geraldine Cummins (1890-1969), the medium, sought to stop unauthorised publication of that text, which was subsequently promoted with the words
In this chronicle, the Christian will find confirmation of his most cherished beliefs, while the claim of psychic science to the possibility of obtaining exact knowledge by supernormal means is vindicated to the full.
The non-believer, on the other hand, might simply have fallen asleep after encountering page after page of prose such as -
Now the inn was set in a barren place, no great journey from Jerusalem. Truly the face of that region seemed as the countenance of some old bald head which is scored and wrinkled, scourged by the furies of life and time. Only in spring did any green things show themselves, and that but sparsely. Soon the grasses drooped and died. With summer these rocky valleys and clifted hills were stripped of plant and flower, and the eyes of men were greeted only with the bare and pitiless stones that burned the feet with the coming of the noonday sun.

Mary might well have pined and drooped when compelled to five in the midst of such harshness; and at times her spirit yearned for the vine clad slopes of Galilee, for the rich blossom of that land, for the peace of the deep blue waters of the lake. Yet she was content because her dream grew and increased in loveliness.

In the season of harvest the innkeeper made great preparation and caused his housewife and handmaid to scour the house; for he deemed that many pilgrims would soon pass by that way, journeying to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles.

It was a year when the hearts and minds of many Jews were turned towards the Holy City of Zion. So the belief of the innkeeper was fulfilled. Travelers passed by that way in great numbers; and Mary and the housewife served them, labouring early and late. Among them were certain Jews who had come from a far land that lay beyond the Euphrates.

They smiled upon Mary and desired that she should serve them. They were not as other pilgrims, but wore costly robes. So their host sought to do the strangers honour, and the maid bore meat and wine in haste, setting them before each grey beard.

And as they ate their fill they spoke with one another, saying: "Peradventure, we shall see Herod, the king, at Jerusalem, and he may lighten the darkness of our ignorance."

Whereupon the innkeeper inquired of them as to their purpose in this pilgrimage, and as to the knowledge they sought to acquire from a ruler who was not held in any great esteem by the faithful.

One white bearded sage said: "We have learned that the hour of the birth of the Messiah is at hand. We have seen the star that heraldeth His coming and we would find Him out and pay Him homage."

"And where shall he be found?" asked the innkeeper.

"The prophet hath declared that Bethlehem is chosen as His birthplace. 'Thou, Bethlehem, art not the least among the cities of Judaea.' So it hath been written. 'Wherefore, we would seek Him there."

"Nay, not in Bethlehem," spoke another bearded stranger. "Masters, ye are wise men. Wherefore should the King of Israel thus be born in a small city, without the knowledge of the people?"
The Chancery judge unsurprisingly found that he lacked jurisdiction in "the sphere in which the spirit moves" and was not prepared to hold that "authorship and copyright rest with some one already domiciled on the other side of the inevitable river. That is a matter I must leave for solution by others more competent to decide than me". Bad news if you are a spirit seeking copyright protection!

Sweet J in the 'Miracles' judgment comments that -
The centerpiece of this litigation is a lengthy written work entitled "A Course in Miracles" (the "Course"). The Course, currently published by Penguin in a single volume over a thousand pages in length, is divided into three sections: the text ("Text"), a workbook for students ("Workbook"), and a manual for teachers ("Manual"). The Course can loosely be categorized as belonging to that genre of "New Age" spiritual texts which seem to pop out of the post-industrial cultures of the northern hemisphere like the quarks which particle physicists tell us materialize spontaneously in the fabric of space-time. Nevertheless, despite its New Age trappings, the Course is explicitly grounded in Christian theology.

Its somewhat bewildered, bewildering, yet not terribly novel message appears to be that the world humans perceive with their senses is merely an illusion projected by our minds outside of ourselves, and that the true world is "God," who is love, which is "all there is." This is an admittedly subjective summation, but perhaps more informative than the cryptic summation provided in the Course itself: "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."
The Course originated in 1965 with Dr Helen Schucman, an associate professor of medical psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons, who after experiencing "some tension at work", started taking dictation from The Voice (subsequently identified as that of Jesus Christ). The Voice had told her: "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes." She obliged, and eventually over 2 million copies of the book were sold.

The judgment continues -
At some point during the summer of 1975, after it became apparent that an interest for the Course was developing, Schucman heard from the Voice that copyright registration should be sought for the Course, ostensibly in order to preserve the form of the Course against the possibility of incomplete or corrupted editions. Schucman asked that the registration be in the name of the nonprofit organization, the Foundation for Para-Sensory Investigation.
A submission to the court included the statement that -
When A Course in Miracles was originally published in June of 1976, we made a firm commitment to seek out and listen to the Voice of the Holy Spirit before making any decisions related to the Course. None of us was prepared, however, for one particular instruction from Jesus to Helen Schucman, scribe of the Course. He wanted A Course in Miracles copyrighted and, she stated emphatically, he was quite adamant about this. ... the idea of a copyright struck all of us as somewhat out of character when applied to a spiritual teaching such as A Course in Miracles. Nevertheless, even though we could not envision a need for the Course to be copyrighted, we of course listened to Jesus and proceeded to contact the [U.S.] Copyright Office. ...

We were informed that a copyright could not be granted to a non-physical author such as Jesus, nor to "Anonymous." On the other hand, Helen's name could not appear on the Course's copyright page because Jesus had cautioned her against publicly associating her name with it, lest people confuse her role with his and the Holy Spirit's. Therefore, our guidance was that the copyright registration should be filed with the author listed as "Anonymous," followed by Helen's name in parentheses, while the copyright itself was officially assigned by Helen to the Foundation for Inner Peace.
From there it was down hill all the way, with disputes about unauthorised copying the dictation from on high.

The Court indicated that -
even if Schucman had not made herself available to receive this revelation, and even if the original material did not reflect her personal tastes, it is undisputed that the dictated material was subsequently edited: personal references were removed, punctuation was added, chapter and section headings were created, and other work was done to shape the material into the final form it took in the published Course. Even if all of these editorial changes and additions were "approved of" by Jesus, it is undisputed that many of them were initiated by Schucman [and associates] i.e., many changes were not simply dictated, but were initially the impulse of Schucman and those others, with Schucman then "checking" to see if the changes would pass muster with Jesus, a process quite similar to that used by the Contact Commission. Significantly, the initial creative spark for these changes came from Schucman and the others, not from Jesus, and, as in Urantia, materially contributed to the structure of the Course. These editorial changes thus satisfy the "minimal degree of creativity," Feist, 499 U.S. at 346, required by copyright law.

Defendants, in their memoranda of law, play down the editorial contributions of Schucman, stating that she was only a scribe taking dictation. This is not borne out by the evidence, however, even when viewed in the light most favorable to Defendants. Schucman's interaction with the Voice was similar to the Contact Commission's interaction with the divine beings in Urantia: although in each instance the non-human author had the final say, the humans had at least some input into, and effect on, the form and content.
The case is discussed in 'Gutenberg's Legacy: Copyright, Censorship, and Religious Pluralism' by Thomas Cotter in (2003) 91(2) California Law Review.