Stay N' Alive - Latest Comments in The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:56:05 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Kenjebz — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:24:15 -0000

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!

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:13:04 -0000

Andrew, you're right - I've removed the logo, per their requirements. I was
unaware of their policy until now.

Jesse

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Andrew Jorgensen — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:24:37 -0000

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&...

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:17:49 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:10:03 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jared — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:05:49 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Pete Dunn — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:41:44 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Pete Dunn — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:39:00 -0000

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?

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:19:04 -0000

I will gladly remove it if they ask me to - I wish I could find a legal
version on their site though.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Pete Dunn — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:10:09 -0000

Did you get permission to use the logo? Just wondering ;)

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:08:04 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:04:06 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:01:05 -0000

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?

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Anon — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:22:13 -0000

Your church is simply a way of extracting money from people at their lowest, wake up and smell the evolution!

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

anon — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:13:18 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Andrew Jorgensen — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:05:10 -0000

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. ;-)

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:38:03 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

Andrew Jorgensen — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:20:10 -0000

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.

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

jessestay — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:54:05 -0000

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).

Re: The Mormon Church/Wikileaks Fiasco (or not-so-fiasco), A Mormon’s Perspective

LivSimpl — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:50:14 -0000

Great perspective piece, and a nice tie-in to social media. Thanks for posting it!