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Plagiarism: Difference between revisions
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=William Sowders= | =William Sowders= | ||
For details on the similarities with [[William Sowders]], please go to [[William Sowders|the article on how William Branham | For details on the similarities with [[William Sowders]], please go to [[William Sowders|the article on how William Branham appears to have copied doctrinal teachings from Sowders]]. | ||
=Defenses against the charge of plagiarism= | |||
We have had several people contact us and state that there are several reasons why William Branham was not guilty of plagiarism. These claims do not hold up to any kind of scrutiny and simply appear to be symptomatic of [[Cognitive Dissonance]]. | |||
==Derivative work== | |||
It is argued by some message believers that William Branham did not plagiarize clarence Larkin's works but rather created a derivative work. The argument was presented as follows: | |||
:''...a derivative work is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works. Briefly, any other form in which an original work may be recast, transformed, or adapted can be considered a derivative work. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications that, when taken as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is also a "derivative work" (Source: Title 17 U.S.C. Section 101). In other words, using an existing idea to create or transform it into another idea. To put it bluntly, it means you can copy someone’s idea for the purpose of presenting a new idea. So basically, what William Branham did was a typical derivative work from Clarence Larkin. | |||
It is correct that U.S. copyright law protects the right to "make a derivative work," such as a movie from a book. But a derivative work does not include a direct copying of Larkin's work verbatim and including it in the Church Age book. | |||
We suggest that anyone concerned with this issue should review Larkin's work on the church ages and then read the first few chapters of Branham's church age book. Pages of Larkin's work are copied verbatim. | |||
==Public domain== | |||
The argument that William Branham did not plagiarize Larkin's works is as follows (taken from an argument presented by [[The Message|a follower of William Branham]]: | |||
:''According to U.S. copyright laws, any works published before 1923 are already entered into public domain. It means it is given to the public. Anyone can freely use of the materials without asking permission or paying anything. Both of Larkin's 2 books being published before 1923, has already entered in public domain. By this alone, it is a proof that there is no plagiarism because the material was never stolen. There is no such thing as stealing in public domain materials. | |||
The problem with this argument is that it doesn't look at what the situation was during William Branham's lifetime. Larkin's ''The Book of Revelation'' was published in 1919 and passed into the public domain in 1975, 10 years after William Branham died. | |||
So William Branham was in clear violation of U.S. copyright law when he published the Church Age book in 1965. | |||
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