Search:
Bhakti List Archives

RE: Cassette collections

From the Bhakti List Archives

Srinath Chakravarty • July 25, 2001 


Sri Rajagopalan Srinivasan:

You have rightly pointed out this very important aspect.
Many practicing Hindus of various denominations, Sri
Vaishnavas included, take their religious texts and
other material for granted - with the assumption that
"anything goes" as far as duplication and distribution
of those sources is concerned.

Agreed, many vidwans give away copies of their work
for free at times, in order to encourage readers to
learn and spread their message.  But it is incumbent
upon the recipient to handle this "gift" appropriately,
and to exercise discretion before going ahead and
making photocopies to give to others.

After all, the issues of copyright infringement etc.
have arisen largely because of advanced duplication
technologies, which were unheard of till a few years
ago.  Most traditional vidwans still think in terms
of those days, while giving away copies of books and
stotrams to interested persons.

These ethical concerns of "copyright infringement",
and so on were completely inapplicable during the days
of our poorvacharyas and their palm leaf manuscripts.
It is time we (modern-day followers) put an end to our
double-standards; one for western publications and
another conveniently dubious standard for our religious
material.  When there are publishers such as LIFCO etc.
why don't we try and look at it both as financial help
towards their noble cause, in addition to doing away
with our own double standards?

Let us first put our money where our mouths are, and
see how many of the problems that plague our traditions
today, will automatically disappear...

adiyEn
-Srinath C.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: adiyaen@hotmail.com [mailto:adiyaen@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 4:48 PM
> To: SriRangaSri@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [SriRangaSri] Re: Cassette collections
> 
> First accessory one needs to convert a commercial tape to any other 
> format is an **approval from the original source** for doing so. 
> Irrespective of the profits they make out of it,we should acknowledge 
> that they have taken some efforts in its production. We come across 
> many cases where ,more out of enthusiasm, we infringe copyright 
> issues. This discourages the miniscule few who still try to release 
> recordings related to the sampradAyam.
> 
> Equally discouraging it is to see many bhaktAs using freely 
> photocopied materials of stotra malas, sahsranamam, prabhandam etc.., 
> during the gatherings. Surprisingly this is more common outside 
> India. Gone are the days when it is difficult to eOrder these texts. 
> They are easily available, cheap and of course not heavy to carry (Do 
> we ever see a Christian carrying a photocopied Bible?) since the car 
> does it for us. 
>   
> Our small acts would mean a lot to publishers like LIFCO. Sri 
> Varadhan of LIFCO is accessible via email and is very prompt in
> responding to our eOrders.

--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/