It is important to
note that according to the US
definition of "public domain" none
of Mr Sparks works are in the
public domain.
Theodore Austin-Sparks was a
British citizen and lived in
England until his death in 1971.
Consequently, all of his messages,
including his unpublished
manuscripts, are protected under
British law where copyright is
immediate and automatic regardless
of whether the work was ever
published or not. However, based
on his actions and statements, T.
Austin-Sparks appears to have
waived his copyright and did not
want commercial exploitation of
his writings. He wanted his
messages to be freely and
widely available. In spite of
this, Mr Austin-Sparks was careful
to ask that nobody change his
writings but reproduce them word
for word, thus maintaining and
upholding his moral rights as an
author. This means that
even if his messages are not
subject to copyright, they may
not be edited or changed.
Moral rights protect
the attribution of literary work to
an author and also serve to protect
the integrity of the work from any
alteration, deletion or addition of
words. Many people assume that if
copyright is waived, it means that
they can freely edit and change the
work. However, because of
moral rights, nobody may make
changes to an author's work unless
the moral rights have been waived.
According
to the Berne Convention, everything
that a person writes is
automatically copyright, even
without an explicit copyright
notice. Copyright registration was
necessary in the USA until that
country acceded to the Berne
Convention in 1989. The Berne
Convention requires that the moral
rights of authors be separate from
economic rights (copyright) and
these moral rights remain with the
author even if they have transferred
or waived their economic rights (see
Article 6bis of the Berne
Convention: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726).
Under
UK
law
(Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988), it is not possible to
extinguish copyright, but the rights
may be waived or assigned to other
parties. Moral rights and
copyright are valid for 70 years
after the author's death.
Normally it is the job of editors
and publishers to edit messages
before they publish them and, from
an earthly perspective, we
understand why some might see the
need to do this with T.
Austin-Sparks messages. A personal
friend of Mr Austin-Sparks told us
of a colleague of his who worked
with T. Austin-Sparks as an editor
for only a month or two before "he
became totally frustrated with the
'verbatim' element and dropped out
of that work".
Mr Austin-Sparks was adamant that
his messages be reproduced word
for word as he originally spoke
them or wrote them. Morally and
spiritually, we encourage people
to respect his request and
maintain the integrity of his
messages. There are instances
where people publishing the works
of T. Austin-Sparks have made
changes to what he wrote: deleting
words, adding to what he said, and
changing his wording. We are
personally committed to upholding
his moral rights and honouring his
wishes. We endeavour to publish
his messages word for word on this
website, without changing them.
Where we have discovered that
messages given to us have been
edited and changed, we have
removed these from the website and
corrected them, returning them to
their original "verbatim" form.
Our "editing" on the website
consists only of correcting
punctuation and misspelled words,
translating Roman numerals (some
people can't read them), breaking
long paragraphs or sentences into
more than one, and on rare occasions
inserting small words if they are
obviously missing (such as "the",
"and", "in", "is"). If a word
is not clear in the original and we
have to guess, we put these words in
[square] brackets so it is clear
that it is an addition by us. Some more
recent publications are in American
English, but where the original was
in British English, the British form
of spelling and punctuation is
retained. We were told that the
family of Mr Austin-Sparks wished
his messages to retain their British
spelling.
The distribution of Mr
Austin-Sparks messages was
facilitated by a Trust that
operated during his lifetime and
for a period after his death. His
son-in law, Mr Angus Kinnear (now
deceased), was the Chairperson of
the Trust that published T.
Austin-Sparks works both during
and after his lifetime. Mr Kinnear
clarified in a paper dated 1995
that the trustees viewed the works
of T. Austin-Sparks as "...of
spiritual value but no commercial
value" and that "The Editor [TAS]
made no provision for copyright or
authors’ royalties, the enterprise
being seen as a service to the
Church at large". This reflects
the stated testimony of T.
Austin-Sparks that his works not
be copyrighted or exploited for
commercial or monetary profit.
Mr Kinnear also noted the
following in his paper regarding
the reprinting and translation of
T. Austin-Sparks works: “Private
reprinting
and translation of titles by
others has generally been viewed
with favour by the trustees (and
earlier by Mrs. Austin-Sparks),
who despite absence of
copyrights, have usually been
approached as a courtesy in such
matters.”
In the 1963 July-August edition
of his magazine, Mr Austin-Sparks
wrote:
It has always been our
desire to make the ministry
through this little medium
available to ALL of the
Lord's people; not regarding
it as our personal property.
"Freely ye have received,
freely give" has been our
principle.
Where we have felt we could
do so we have granted, on
request, permission to
reproduce messages in other
magazines. But we have come up
against a difficulty, and are
finding ourselves being
seriously misunderstood by
some of our friends. The
messages have been embodied in
magazines which have a
particular 'ism' which is of
doubtful rightness, and
sometimes, harmful influence.
We just want to say to all
of our readers that while
those who use these messages
usually do so in sincerity and
because they feel their
spiritual value, it must not
be concluded that we accept
the particular teaching which
these dear people propagate.
In some cases we would
strongly repudiate the
interpretation. In some cases
we have had to request that
our name should not be
associated with their
teaching.
This website was initiated in
2001 after we received copies of
books by T. Austin-Sparks
from Emmanuel Church in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. Believing them to be
copyright free, we felt led to
make them available on the
internet. At that stage we weren't
aware of any surviving family
members from whom to request
permission. We contacted
Emmanuel Church who confirmed
that T. Austin-Sparks did not
want his messages to be
copyright and they told us that
we were free to do what the Lord
was leading us to do. It
was only much later that we
received contact details for three
of Mr Austin-Sparks' daughters.
Each of the surviving daughters
wrote to us in support of the
ongoing work of Austin-Sparks.Net.
Most messages by T. Austin-Sparks
were initially published in his
free magazine "A
Witness and A Testimony"
and distributed without charge to
regular subscribers. All costs of
the magazine were met by gifts
from appreciative readers. T.
Austin-Sparks' self-published
books (printed at Honor Oak) were
free or made available at cost
and, as far as Austin-Sparks.Net
is aware, no royalties were ever
collected by the author from the
sale of any of his works.
Publication expenses were met by
way of cost recovery and
donations.
In his "A Witness and A Testimony"
magazine in 1933 this comment was
published regarding the
publication of books:
Witness and Testimony
Literature
After much
spiritual exercise concerning
the Literature which has grown
out of this ministry, we have
come to feel that the Lord
would have us make it
available without cost to any
of His really hungry children
who desire to have it, and to
him the cost would present
some difficulty. We are
therefore ready to trust Him
to meet this need as He does
that of the WITNESS AND
TESTIMONY, through the gifts
of His children, and now we
throw open the literature to
His use.
We have continued to make all
publications available free of
charge wherever possible. To date,
the only medium where we have been
required to charge has been in
publishing e-books on Amazon.com.
A minimum charge of 99 cents (US)
is mandatory, from which
Austin-Sparks.Net receives 35
cents for each electronic book
sold. To offset this,
in the description section of
each book on Amazon.com we have
drawn attention to the
fact that the book can be
downloaded for free from
Austin-Sparks.Net.
We appreciate T. Austin-Sparks'
wish to not copyright his
messages; this has meant that we
have been able to offer these
works freely on the
Austin-Sparks.Net website. We also
appreciate his thoughtfulness in
protecting his moral rights, thus
ensuring the integrity of his
messages. We trust that visitors
to this website who choose to
download and pass on these
messages will also offer them
freely and without changes,
consistent with this statement on
each page of the website:
In keeping with T.
Austin-Sparks' wishes that what
was freely received should be
freely given and not sold for
profit, and that his messages be
reproduced word for word, we ask
if you choose to share these
messages with others, to please
respect his wishes and offer
them freely - free of any
changes, free of any charge
(except necessary distribution
costs) and with this statement
included.
Please
do not copy and use this
website's logo without
permission as it is
copyright.
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