In mid-May Grace Communion International (the former Worldwide Church of God) filed a "take down notice" with YouTube against Herbert W Armstrong TV Archives and two other pages. Like many others in the Church of God, they felt they had the RIGHT to steal copyrighted videos, booklets, articles, etc. from GCI. They claim this right because they feel that Herbert Armstrong was a true prophet of God and his words are sacred and need to be preserved.
Various individuals over the last two and half decades have plagiarized, in one way or another, every single thing that HWA and the WCG produced pre-1986. One of the biggest offenders of this was Gerald Flurry. Without asking, he published Mystery of the Ages and other books by Herbert Armstrong, resulting in a humiliating series of court trials. The Philadelphia Church of God LOST these cases and had to pay the WCG 3.5 million dollars for rights to publish HWA materials.
Most of these people got their inspiration from Donald Tiger who started copying everything he could get his hands on in the late 1980's and sent the materials out on CD's to anyone who asked. Then....God's most important man to ever exist in human history stuck his dirty hands in the pie and created a huge mess for Tiger. Dave Pack apparently framed Tiger for embezzlement....see
Did David C Pack Frame Don Tiger? Dave Pack, being the narcissist he is, gets extremely jealous of ANYONE who is doing sometime better than himself.
With Tiger out of the way, others stepped in to fill what they saw as a void in keeping "the truth once restored" alive. Huge collections of the writings of HWA and most other WCG leaders prior to 1986 started filling the web. With the disgust that so many felt towards many of the splinter group leaders many COG members used these materials to stay and home and away from these groups. As the spiritual perversions of Flurry, Pack, UCG, COGWA and LCG started getting more and more bizarre, people started flocking to these sites for sustenance.
The three most popular sites for several years have been:
The Real Elijah TV on Youtube
Herbert W Armstrong TV Archives on Facebook
Worldwide Church of God Archives on Youtube
Now these sites are empty and the guardians of these sites are screaming "FAMINE OF THE WORD!" even though no such thing is happening. These people got caught doing something illegal and they are not happy. For people who claim to follow the 10 Commandments to the letter, theft of works owned by someone else apparently is not "theft" in their eyes.
These people and many other COG wanna-a-be leaders all claim the "fair-use" excuse to justify their theft of privately owned works:
This channel is about the preserving of the works, and literary, and
video and audio productions of the "Worldwide Church of God, a
unincorporated spiritual organism". We are apart of this church, and we
wish to protect and preserve the teachings of this "Church". And we wish
to make them available, for our fellow brethren worldwide. And this is
protected under the fair-use provision of the copyright regulations, as
defined in 17 USC 107. HWA TV Archives
Here is what "Fair Use" actually means which is NOT what the COG splinters are claiming:
What Is Fair Use?
In
its most general sense, a
fair use is any copying of copyrighted
material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to
comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be
done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair
use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use
qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal
infringement.
So what is a “transformative” use? If this
definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars
in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a
fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and
varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the
fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free
speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open
to interpretation.
Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.
Commentary and Criticism
If
you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for
instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to
reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of
commentary and criticism include:
- quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
- summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
- copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
- copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.
The
underlying rationale of this rule is that the public reaps benefits
from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted
material. Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided
in the examples of fair use cases.
Parody
A parody is a
work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in
a comic way. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some
taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of
fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a
parody in order to “conjure up” the original.Copyright and Fair Use: Stanford University
None of these people are criticizing or parodying Armstrong works. They are publishing or rebroadcasting in the entirety copyrighted and licensed works of someone else. Being prohibited from doing that by the legal owner, no matter now disgusting many think this to be, is NOT the "famine of the word."
According to these people Jesus Christ is PERSONALLY being attacked by GCI's actions. Of course this is all tied to SATAN trying to stop the words of HWA being promulgated upon on the world. They also assume that God was an impotent creature that was unable to keep his word alive down through the centuries till Herbert came along and restored it. Anyone with even the slightest bit of real church history knowledge will know this to be blatantly untrue.
Under
Herbert W Armstrong, The Worldwide Church of God, was also attacked
with attempts to muzzle the message they brought. God's apostle, Herbert
W Armstrong, preached around the world, the true gospel of Jesus
Christ, the gospel or good news of the coming Kingdom of God!
And
we, The Worldwide Church of God, an unincorporated spiritual organism,
support him in God's Work. And we are still supporting him today, and
that is why we make such materials available. And such attacks, from
Grace Communion International, is an attack, believe it or not, on "The
Worldwide Church of God, an unincorporated spiritual organism", and if
God's Church is attacked, then the attack is on Jesus Christ and God the
Father!
This world does not know what spirits lead them to do such
deeds. They actually think they are doing God's will to destroy, and
to censor and to muzzle the true gospel message, which was delivered by
Herbert W Armstrong, and supported by "The Worldwide Church of God, an
unincorporated spiritual organism".
So continue to pray brethren.
Pray even for our enemies. Pray that God can bring them according to His
Will to a place, where He can bless them for obeying Him.
AND CONTINUE TO DRAW CLOSE TO GOD THROUGH FASTING AND PRAYER.
Because time is short, and we are entering it seems, the famine of the
Word. But if that is God's Will, it will be done. But, perhaps God is
testing His People Again, to see if they really love Him and His Truth,
and to see if they are truly backing and supporting the delivering of
the true gospel message, which Herbert W Armstrong preached?!?!
Nevertheless, Satan the Devil is ANGRY!
There is a lot of other bullshit that these people claim further in their Facebook page; of which not one single thing they claim is true. Of course this really is the fault of all the COG members who do NOT support these "ministries" They are allowing Satan to lead them astray and the church. Unless they repent God is not on their side.
He is watching our choices. We are truly being judged right now.
We all have fell to sin, and have found each of ourselves off track.
God corrects those whom He loves, and He allows calamities and trials
and persecutions to come on His people, to test them, and to strengthen
them. Faith is like a muscle, it must be used in order to grow and
build. But unlike a muscle, we cannot work up faith, but it must be
given by Jesus Christ. The Living faith of Jesus Christ is what we must
have, and God has promised in His Word, that if we ask for faith, He
will give us the LIVING faith of Jesus Christ.
Satan always gets the short-shift for mistakes COG leaders make.
We
are not battling with human beings, but with spirits in high places,
who do not want God's Truth made available, who want to see it
destroyed, who want every single one of us DEAD forever. We have a large
target on our backs. And Satan and his demons are zeroing on God's
Church, and wanting to destroy us, any way he can. DO you have a sin you
don't think matters? Satan will use that to destroy you forever, if you
do not repent of that sin, and turn and begin doing it God's Way! The
same is with us. We are in perilous times brethren. And we need to get
each other back on track.
They also think that GCI is going to let them have free reign and repost all the hundreds and hundreds of videos they had previously posted. If they don't then it is a sure sign that the end is nigh and their "ministry" is coming to a close. Of course dear brethren it is VITAL that you pray and FAST for this terrible tragedy.
We
are awaiting correspondence from Kenny Ryans, who reported our videos,
and we are praying that God delivers us, and protects His truth.
Perhaps our job is coming to a close? You better make sure you have as
much as these materials downloaded for yourselves if you want them.
Because they are being taken down, as we speak.
Please keep us in your prayers brethren. You are in our prayers.
Please set aside a day for fasting, and take all of this to God. Examine yourselves and make sure you are on track with God.
Fasting has always been used by the COG as a tool to influence their God into doing something THEY want to happen even though under the
new covenant "fasting" is not a requirement of Christians. But heck, when has the new covenant ever been a priority in the Church of God?
Satan is NOT attacking these people, nor is he attacking any of the COG's. Everything that is happening in all the Church of God's right now is directly a result of abuse or greed on their part. No government is attacking them. No one from the Catholic Church even cares about them. No one is creating issues for these people and the Church of God other than themselves.
