is it possible to "steal" the Dhamma? Well according to BPS and those in favor of copyright it is somehow...
As Kim noted, you're overlooking a rather elementary distinction. It’s certainly possible to steal by making an unauthorised use of an original scholarly production in which a portion of the Dhamma happens to be preserved, but whose copyright has not yet expired. To take one example...
Back in 1993, that quaestuary syndicate of rogues that calls itself Wat Dhammakaya decided that the Dhamma could
not be copyrighted. Since it couldn’t be copyrighted, they reasoned that they, being a Buddhist institution, were fully entitled to take all of the Pali Text Society’s English translations of Pali texts and put them onto a CD for free distribution. The PTS then threatened to sue for copyright breach and its then President sent the following e-mail to the members of an academic Indology LISTSERV:
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:46:08 EDT
From: xxxxxxx@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM
From: K.R. Norman, President of the Pali Text Society
BUDDHISM AND INDIAN STUDIES
IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE VERY CAREFULLY
You may have received a communication from Professor Witzel of Harvard informing you that the Dhammakaya Foundation has completed the input of the whole of the Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM, and will be distributing it free.
Please take note that the material which the Foundation proposes to distribute in this way is the property of the Pali Text Society, of which I am President. The Foundation has no right to copy the material on CD-Rom and distribute it in that or any other way. We have been negotiating with the Foundation for some time with a view to possible copying and distribution, but the negotiations have not been completed, and any copying, distribution and use are therefore in breach of our rights.
Please also take note that we reserve the right to take legal action to enforce our rights in this important material against those who disregard them.
The Pali Text Society is a non-profit-making organisation established for many years and dedicated to the advancement of the study of Pali texts and the Pali language. The material which the Dhammakaya Foundation has put on CD-ROM represents many years of work and original research by this Society's scholars. Any legal proceedings which we institute will be necessary to enable us to carry out the purposes for which this organisation was founded. The pursuance of academic studies everywhere becomes impossible if the rights of others are abused as is happening in this case.Though for a time the Dhammakaya rogues tried to take the moral high ground by bleating about how the Dhamma “couldn’t be copyrighted”, in the end their lawyers warned them that they could expect to get their arses badly kicked in the courtroom and so they backed down.
And it's not possible that PTS was in the wrong here?
Since the PTS had the law on its side, it could be in the wrong only if the law was unjust.
What do they mean that they can't continue to study pali and the pali texts without proceeds?
The PTS's funds for sponsoring Pali scholars come in large part from the proceeds of its book sales. So what Prof. Norman means is that if the Society's book sales decline because of copyright infringement, then it won't be able to accomplish as much.
How have they studied them the 2,000 years prior without copyright?
They haven't. The PTS was only founded in 1881.
I feel that if they were truly concerned with spreading the Dhamma as they say then they would have let it go.
You seem to have misconceived the nature of the PTS. It isn't a Buddhist missionary body. It's an academic scholarly society. As such, spreading the Dhamma is no part of its members' collective concern. Its leading scholars have run the full gamut from practising Buddhists, like Cousins and Gethin, to sympathetic non-Buddhists, like Horner and Collins, to scholars like K.R. Norman who are interested only in Indic philology and regard Buddhism as a load of rubbish.
I completely support what these monks did, secular law does not and cannot determine what is moral and otherwise.
In the present instance, what secular law can do is to furnish criteria as to when something does or doesn't count as "property". Without such criteria there will be no grounds for determining whether the second precept has been kept or broken. If the legislators should happen to be virtuous, non-frivolous, skilled in precedent, etc., then we can expect that their definitions will be good ones that ensure justice for all. If not, then their criteria must be disregarded and recourse be had instead to the judgment of the wise. But this wouldn't be a step to be taken lightly, given the difficulty of arriving at a consensus as to who counts as wise.[/list]