MIA takes down Marx/Engels collected works

[Per Levy]

read the statement here http://www.marxists.org/

appearantly a "independent radical publisher" has the copyright to marx engels collected works and MIA is has to take it down now.

good thing when "radical leftists" sue each other on how to make the most profit of marx/engels work.

[Comrade Jacob]

That is...very strange. Also sad.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

They should just move it to some other server then and make the ownership hazy and make sure they have a good host that isn't an arse that takes it down.

Only very vaguely related but... Germans are deranged with copyright stuff. Seriously, it's as if it some part of the German culture to worship patents and copyrights. In a number of communities where users contribute graphics to games (like Simutrans and OpenTTD), there's always some people who are obsessed with controlling how their graphics are used and causes drama when they cannot control how and someone uses them without kissing the ground on which they thread first. These people are in 8 out of ten cases Germans, for some reason...

It's hilarious that some ex-CPGB arseholes are taking down Marx & Engels though. :laugh::laugh: Now, we're even closer to the revolution! Don't infringe on our right to this material!

[Tim Cornelis]

I thought it was about M.I.A.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Well, simple solution to this:

1. Tell the publishers in question (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/contact.html) what you think of them.

2. Help me organize a public boycott/shaming.

[Remus Bleys]

Well, simple solution to this:

1. Tell the publishers in question (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/contact.html) what you think of them.

2. Help me organize a public boycott/shaming.

because that always works? "Hey man I don't like that you took it down" "Fuck you buy my product"

[Rafiq]

This is outrageous. The works of Marx and Engels belong to the commons, in laying claim to them not only do they attack all Marxists, they put at stake the legitimacy of their works.

[Rafiq]

Well, simple solution to this:

1. Tell the publishers in question (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/contact.html) what you think of them.

2. Help me organize a public boycott/shaming.

I for one would be willing to help. Though I am repelled by internet activism, this is something which concerns me, as the MIA is something I find of great importance.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

XXXX XXXXXXX ([email protected])

To: [email protected], [email protected]

Subject: Marx & Engels Collected Works

To whom it may concern,

I wish to inform you that I am greatly concerned with your conduct toward the Marxists Internet Archive, a free resource of immense value to Marxists and radicals the world over. Your enforcement of copyright against them is not only a petty bit of bourgeois entitlement, but uncomradely and disrespectful to all those engaged in the communist project.

I will be working to ensure the organizations with which I am affiliated (the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group among others), and those of my friends and comrades, will not be patronizing your "radical" publishing business until such a time as this grave error is rectified.


Sincerely,

xxxx xxxxxxx

Bastards.

[Thirsty Crow]

I for one would be willing to help. Though I am repelled by internet activism, this is something which concerns me, as the MIA is something I find of great importance.
I'm up for it as well.

[Brutus]

Well, simple solution to this:

1. Tell the publishers in question (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/contact.html) what you think of them.

2. Help me organize a public boycott/shaming.

I'm in. I am jack's raging bile ducts.

[Brutus]

Bastards.

I'll spread it on ze Facebook too.

[Sinister Intents]

Aren't there other decent places to get their works from? Should I really care too much if I can get them for free still anyway?

[Nakidana]

They should just move it to some other server then and make the ownership hazy and make sure they have a good host that isn't an arse that takes it down.

Well this basically. Apart from shaming and boycotting lwbooks the material in question needs to be copied and disseminated, get some of that good 'ol Streisand effect going.

[Alexios]

Aren't there other decent places to get their works from? Should I really care too much if I can get them for free still anyway?

It's only the Collected Works that are being removed, meaning the huge archive of everything M&E ever wrote. The Selected Works are still available, which contain all of the important stuff.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

copy and pasted your message to them, TGDU.

Willing to help. What to do?

[piet11111]

Why cant the mia put all the stuff into .pdf files and bundle them into a torrent.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

copy and pasted your message to them, TGDU.

Willing to help. What to do?

I assume you took out the stuff about the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group? :confused:

Unless you are secretly one of my coworkers.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I know you muahahaha.

Nah, I amended it slightly.

[Red Commissar]

This isn't the first time it has happened to them, but the last place I'd've expected a copyright take down to happen was with Marx and Engels themselves. That's really slimy.

Another take down that occurred earlier into their life was with Antonio Gramsci (http://marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm), someone who they'd put on their "selected Marxists" lists and if you look on the page there, had once had quite a bit of his stuff. This was because they had received permission from the original English translator, Quintin Hoare, to be able to put up several of his major works (http://marxists.org/archive/gramsci/hoare_permission_for_spn.txt). It was later that the publisher of said translations claimed that Hoare didn't have the right to give that permission and that they, not him, had final say. They demanded all of it to be taken down, and MIA did so- what you're left with is a relic of the past with these works that were formerly hyperlinked to full texts no longer present.

You know what's the kicker? It was the same exact publisher that made this request (http://lwbooks.co.uk/). I get over with calling copyright on the various other Marxist writers that came afterwards even if it was horribly stupid and slimy, but Marx and Engels themselves? That's low. Thankfully it didn't hit the entire set of works they have.

[synthesis]

I thought copyrights became null and void after the creator has been dead for fifty years. Or is that just music? It really seems odd that someone can claim copyright infringement on works by authors that have been dead for over a century.

Also, could they move their servers to Sweden, so they're protected by the same laws that (sort of) protect The Pirate Bay?

[RedWorker]

... and I wonder, how does some random business have the copyright to some letter Marx wrote a hundred years ago?

Fuck intellectual property, nobody owns thoughts!

[reb]

I thought copyrights became null and void after the creator has been dead for fifty years. Or is that just music? It really seems odd that someone can claim copyright infringement on works by authors that have been dead for over a century.

Also, could they move their servers to Sweden, so they're protected by the same laws that (sort of) protect The Pirate Bay?

I think it's the translation into English that is protected. Maybe I should claim copyright to my translation work of Bordiga...

[Nakidana]

Why cant the mia put all the stuff into .pdf files and bundle them into a torrent.

Actually the whole site has been ripped and bundled into a torrent, including MECW. It's a pretty big file though. But people are also in the process of securing a copy solely of the material being taken down, so it seems we're covered. You can read more about it in the corresponding r/socialism post (http://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/23v755/marxists_internet_archive_is_to_delete_its_entire/).

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Actually the whole site has been ripped and bundled into a torrent, including MECW. It's a pretty big file though. But people are also in the process of securing a copy solely of the material being taken down, so it seems we're covered. You can read more about it in the corresponding r/socialism post (http://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/23v755/marxists_internet_archive_is_to_delete_its_entire/).

That's some really handy information there. An ordinary thanking of your post doesn't do it enough justice, so I thought I'd post my sentiments.

[BIXX]

Jesus. I'm not a huge fan of M&E but seriously, this copyright shit is so dumb in regards to their works. Def gonna get ahold of the compiled works and then spread it around, so they can't pull this shit.

[Dagoth Ur]

This is the same reason why reading Gramsci online is nearly impossible.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Wow, this is some Pathfinder-grade bullshit. To top it all off, half of Lewis and Wishart used to be a "family-owned liberal and anti-fascist publisher". Pass the vomit bucket.

[RedMaterialist]

Wtf!!??

[synthesis]

The wording on the MIA index page statement is really vague. It says that they "hold the copyright for Marx Engels Collected Works" and that MIA is going to delete "all texts originating from MECW," but then it says that "English translations of Marx and Engels from other sources will continue to be available."

Does this mean alternate translations of the material in MECW will still be there, or does this publisher own the source texts (I'm assuming German) as well? If it's the former, this all doesn't seem like that big of a deal. If it's the latter, that's just unconscionable. There have to be more creative ways (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism) of letting the publishers know they're in the wrong than just a boycott and angry letters. Aggregating the targeted material is a good start.

[Leftsolidarity]

I sent an email as well. I should be receiving the file of all the works being deleted by a friend.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

To me, it isn't so much as the texts are being deleted as it more has to do with infringing on my references when I am talking with someone; without a easy reference point as to where to read a text, education becomes muddled since money becomes the only route to understand Leftist theory.

Provided, there is Marx 2 Mao, but I do not know how up to date on the "classics" they are.

[Sea]

Well, simple solution to this:

1. Tell the publishers in question (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/contact.html) what you think of them.

2. Help me organize a public boycott/shaming.Or a book burning.... but that might send the opposite message.

[Geiseric]

Why cant the mia put all the stuff into .pdf files and bundle them into a torrent.

They do a service where you can get the entire archive in a hard drive for the price of the drive and a small donation actually. MIA is non profit though so I don't see much they can be sued for in reality.

[piet11111]

They do a service where you can get the entire archive in a hard drive for the price of the drive and a small donation actually. MIA is non profit though so I don't see much they can be sued for in reality.

Is there a link to this service ?

[Kingfish]

I find the fact that they will be having the content taken down one day before May Day to be rather strange. Is this simply ignorance or are they really being this petty?

Do you think this could be a temporary marketing ploy on their part kind of a new coke type situation to get themselves better known?

[Kill all the fetuses!]

This an e-mail that someone presumably received from the publisher:

"I don’t think you have much conception of how difficult it is to keep a small socialist publisher afloat in these times. We have an opportunity to make these works available through an academic route that will bring us in income which will help us fund other projects. We never make any profit. There is no reason why copyright on Marx translation should be any less respected than that of any other writer."

[piet11111]

I cant make a living selling ice to eskimo's either so i will ban them from gathering ice ?

[Anderson]

http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/Index.html

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"I don’t think you have much conception of how difficult it is to keep a small socialist publisher afloat in these times. We have an opportunity to make these works available through an academic route that will bring us in income which will help us fund other projects. We never make any profit. There is no reason why copyright on Marx translation should be any less respected than that of any other writer."

Well the last sentence is true - but for us it means something else than it did for them, I think. So an online resource that has provided easy access to the works of Marx and Engels, for thousands of people throughout the world, should be gutted, so that Lawrence and Wisham can print Renewal (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/renewal/contents.html), "a quarterly journal of social democracy, committed to modernisation, but keen to open discussion about the forms it might take".

Seriously, fuck their small business, fuck their liberalism and social democracy, and fuck all "independent radical publisher" radhipster douchebaggery.

[Comrade Jacob]

Good thing I copied and passed it into a...word document :crying:. Better than none.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

By the way - if anyone wants to see how an actual socialist (not "independent radical") publisher operates, consider the Prometheus Research Library (the Sparts' publishing operation - I didn't choose them for sectarian reasons but because I have personally dealt with them), or the people who publish Revolutionary History, both of which have allowed MIA, via the Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line, to post most of their material online. In fact the SL is likely to send you Prometheus material for free without you asking (I suspect most other groups do similar things).

If you want to see how a socialist, or "socialist", publisher shouldn't operate, check out Pathfinder, Mehring, and "independent radical" publishers like Lard and Wankers.

[RedMaterialist]

MECW seems to be back online.

[Comrade Jacob]

MECW seems to be back online.

Didn't they say it's being taken down on the 30th?

[RedMaterialist]

Didn't they say it's being taken down on the 30th?

It was down yesterday.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

It's back up, so get it while it's hot.

[Zanthorus]

... and I wonder, how does some random business have the copyright to some letter Marx wrote a hundred years ago?


I thought copyrights became null and void after the creator has been dead for fifty years.

If you've ever searched for sheet music on the internet, you might notice that while there is plenty of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach on offer, none of the recent urtext or critical editions are represented. That's because publishers have rights very similar to copyright holders called publishers rights, although lasting for a shorter period of time than actual copyright, in the UK at least.

Also, according to the UK society of authors:


The law recognises this 'original' nature of a translation and affords copyright protection to the translation, separate from the copyright protection to which the original foreign work is entitled and also separate from the protection of someone else's translation of the same work.http://www.societyofauthors.org/translation-faqs

So translations are protected by copyright.


The wording on the MIA index page statement is really vague. It says that they "hold the copyright for Marx Engels Collected Works" and that MIA is going to delete "all texts originating from MECW," but then it says that "English translations of Marx and Engels from other sources will continue to be available."

Does this mean alternate translations of the material in MECW will still be there, or does this publisher own the source texts (I'm assuming German) as well? .

'Marx Engels Collected Works' doesn't refer to the collected works of Marx and Engels as such, it refers to the 50 volume edition of their works published by Lawrence and Wishart. The actual collected works of Marx and Engels run into an estimated 120 volumes and the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, the project to publish it all in German, won't be complete until ~2025. The original source texts are long out of copyright under European law (I think, I don't know all the ins and outs, I assume there may be some difficulty with unpublished works).

[piet11111]

Ok in that torrent file bitdefender says is a trojan.

JS.Trojan.Winbomb.F

Malwarebytes on the other hand says its clean.

[Red Commissar]

It's either a slow news day or they're taking enjoyment at this situation

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/capitalism-fells-communism-in-marx-engels-copyright-flap/

[Zukunftsmusik]

Statement from Lard and Wankers (thanks, Vincent West). (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/collected_works_statement.html)


Over the last couple of days Lawrence & Wishart has been subject to campaign of online abuse because we have asked for our copyright on the scholarly edition of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels to be respected. The panic being spread to the effect that L&W is ‘claiming copyright’ for the entirety of Marx and Engels’ output is baseless, slanderous and largely motivated by political sectarianism from groups and individuals who have never been friendly to L&W.

"campaign of online abuse". So much butthurt.


Ultimately, in asking L&W to surrender copyrights in this particular edition of the works of Marx & Engels, MIA and their supporters are asking that L&W, one of the few remaining independent radical publishers in the UK, should commit institutional suicide. At the same time they are reproducing the norms and expectations not of the socialist and communist traditions, but of a consumer culture which expects cultural content to be delivered free to consumers, leaving cultural workers such as publishers, editors and writers unpaid, while the large publishing and other media conglomerates and aggregators continue to enrich themselves through advertising and data-mining revenues and through their far greater institutional weight compared to small independent publishers.

Yep, those who complain that you take down this in order to earn money on dead people's writings are the ones who reproduce the norms of consumer culture.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

ultimately, in asking l&w to surrender copyrights in this particular edition of the works of marx & engels, mia and their supporters are asking that l&w, one of the few remaining independent radical publishers in the uk, should commit institutional suicide.

And then who would print magazines about social democracy that only grad students read? WHO?

[Q]

I'm currently downloading the website. Currently at about 9GB of, apparently, about 140GB.

And yes, I know they're 'only' pulling MECW. I just don't trust it. Better to be safe than sorry.

Maybe some freenet or i2p site can be setup in the future? :)

[synthesis]

The sorrows and pains of the petite bourgeoisie - sorry, "cultural workers."

[Nakidana]

consumer culture which expects cultural content to be delivered free to consumers (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/collected_works_statement.html)

Oh no you guys, not free culture!

[synthesis]

We would suggest that if online activists wish to attack targets in the publishing industry who truly do derive huge profits from the exploitation of their workers and from catalogues filled with radical political thought, then there are far more appropriate targets for them to direct their anger towards than a tiny British publishing-house with no shareholders and a tiny, ill-paid staff.

Ironically, these "huge publishers" aren't the ones demanding that an internet archive site remove important historical material for the purpose of profit.


We are currently negotiating an agreement with a distributor that will offer a digital version of the Collected Works to university libraries worldwide. This will have the effect of maintaining a public presence of the Works, in the public sphere of the academic library, paid for by public funds. This is a model of commons that reimburses publishers, authors and translators for the work that has gone into creating a book or series of books.

So students deserve to be able to read this information for free, but everyone else has to pay for it. It's also interesting that they claim they're not being "reimbursed for their work" after that Gramsci stuff mentioned earlier in this thread, where the translator's wishes to give his own work out for free were circumvented by the firm's desire to profit off his labor.

I really think they've dug themselves further into a hole with this statement. They'd be better off just embracing their villainhood.

[piet11111]

I'm currently downloading the website. Currently at about 9GB of, apparently, about 140GB.

And yes, I know they're 'only' pulling MECW. I just don't trust it. Better to be safe than sorry.

Maybe some freenet or i2p site can be setup in the future? :)

How would i go about doing that also ?

[Q]

How would i go about doing that also ?
If you're on a unix-like operating system (Linux, BSD, Mac OS X), wget is your way to go (http://fosswire.com/post/2008/04/create-a-mirror-of-a-website-with-wget/). I used the command:


wget -mk -w 1 http://marxists.org
Mind you that I'm already at it for a day or so. So, leave your computer on 24/7 or aim to download specific parts of the site. This is the list of things that are going to get pulled (http://marxists.org/mecw.htm). So you could aim for that first.

[piet11111]

Damn im on windows :crying:

[Comrade Dracula]

This (http://www.httrack.com) might be useful for those of us who use Windows. Keep in mind that if you are downloading from this page (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/index.htm), you will have to manually exclude links to other sections of the site if you do not want to download the entirety of the Archive (presumably, I've never used this thing before). There's an option for that in the settings menu before you begin the download.

Edit: Doesn't seem to have downloaded it properly, so nevermind. I'll try to see what went wrong.
Edit2: Seemingly works if you use Q's web address.
Edit3: Definitely works, but it will try to download the entirety of MIA, so be ready to cancel it once it downloads what's on the list Q provided. Unless, of course, you want to download the entire archive.

[Q]

Last night was productive: Now am at 27.5GB :)

[reb]

The actual collected works of Marx and Engels run into an estimated 120 volumes and the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, the project to publish it all in German, won't be complete until ~2025.

Is any of this published yet?

EDIT: Disregard, I hadn't realized you meant the MEGA collection.

[Comrade Jacob]

I downloaded on PDF all 31,600+ pages with 113MB.

[anticap]

It's been backed up on a hidden service.

If you have Tor (https://www.torproject.org/) installed: http://iww2iqhwxmnbh4qs.onion/www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/index.htm

If not (and if you don't mind not being anonymous): https://iww2iqhwxmnbh4qs.tor2web.org/www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/index.htm

[Q]

Currently at 154312 items, totalling 81,1 GB.

Also, anticap, your tor2web link doesn't work.

[BIXX]

Currently at 154312 items, totalling 81,1 GB.

Also, anticap, your tor2web link doesn't work.


Depending in the program tire using you might be able to pump more of your computers power into it, which, while not improving your Internet speed, would allow your computer to handle it faster. Also if you haven't already you can probably make the download use a higher percentage of bandwidth while using next to none on other stuff. That should make the download go faster.

[Q]

Depending in the program tire using you might be able to pump more of your computers power into it, which, while not improving your Internet speed, would allow your computer to handle it faster. Also if you haven't already you can probably make the download use a higher percentage of bandwidth while using next to none on other stuff. That should make the download go faster.
Yeah, I didn't expect it to take this long. I kinda hope I have the relevant stuff already :lol:
Currently at about 110GB :)

[Remus Bleys]

http://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/04/29/copyright-controversy-over-marx-engels-collected-works/ here you guys go. someone put up all the original publishers pdfs. Under a gigabyte.

not sure if theres a piracy rule or anything but i'd like to be clear i'm linking to a website that links to another website and the person who compiled the links didn't do it so i think it wouldn't breach any of those rules.

[Zanthorus]

Reading down the list of M/E works by date, most of it is still intact. The only thing I can immediately see that I personally would miss is the Notes on Wagner. As shitty as it is in principal, I don't think this will have much of an impact on the majority of the site's users.

[Remus Bleys]

Chapter 2 of the german ideology is gone. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/

[motion denied]

I've never met anyone who got passed Feuerbach anyway...

Seriously, though, utterly outrageous.

[BIXX]

Chapter 2 of the german ideology is gone. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/


Was that even among the stuff that was supposed to be down?

Anyway I realized I have a copy of a book that has many of these writings it seems kicking around (I think I retrieved it from a store a few years back). I'm gonna double check but I have a bunch of shit by Marx that I feel ought to be given to Marxists or something so yeah if you guys have any suggestions let me know (I also have one that is a collection of Lenin's works that I'm prolly never gonna read).

I might starts liberating more books from their shelves soon.

[blake 3:17]

Archives in English here: http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/cw/index.html


Lawrence & Wishart, who hold the copyright for the Marx Engels Collected Works, directed Marxists Internet Archive to delete all texts originating from MECW. Accordingly, from 30th April 2014, no material from MECW is available from marxists.org. But it's available at History Is A Weapon because we're jerks.
English translations of Marx and Engels from other sources will continue to be available.

[TC]

Don't worry, its still available from its owners, Lawrence & Wishart, an "independent radical" publisher:

http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/books/archive/marx_offer.html

For the low low price of £1,500.00 - a great bargain over the list price of £2,500.00. £300 for overseas shipping.

[PhoenixAsh]

and you can also pay off in monthly installments of 48 pounds.

[synthesis]

Their statement got updated:


Update - 02/05/14 We have been surprised at the recent online response to our efforts to consolidate distribution for the Collected Works of Marx Engels – though of course we are very pleased that so many people are so interested in the work. Because of the strength of feeling, we are considering what we can do to meet the desire for greater access, and will make a further statement when we have decided a course of action.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

wankers.

[Q]

Their statement got updated:
This actually has an effect? Well done everyone!

I suppose this (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1008/karl-marx-and-friedrich-engels-for-the-masses) has something to do with it:


Even from the point of view of what the American Marxist, Scott McLemee, deems a “purely capitalist enterprise”3 (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1008/karl-marx-and-friedrich-engels-for-the-masses#3) (which L&W is obviously not, as things currently stand), this decision is still breathtakingly counterproductive. At the time of writing, 4,746 activists have already signed an online petition: ‘No copyright for Marx-Engels Collected works’. So should you.4 (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1008/karl-marx-and-friedrich-engels-for-the-masses#4) Many of the signatories will be the very writers, journalists, peer reviewers, translators on which any “radical publisher” depends, many of whom will perform such work gratis or for very little out of a commitment to ‘the cause’. You can imagine a possible future scenario where one such figure is asked to review a piece for one of the journals published by L&W: ‘Who publishes it?’ ‘Oh, you mean the people who forced the MECW off the web, right? No thanks.’

[blake 3:17]

I learnt about the petition and History as a Weapon site via Doug Henwood.

I thought they were pretty much just Marx & Engels, but see they publish a bunch of stuff across the left spectrum. Used to know Colin Ward's son. Yeah, don't make the wrong enemies.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Seeing liberals defend this shit in the news or on Facebook is starting to piss me off.
I don't think this is what he had in mind when he said capitalists will sell you the rope with which to hang them...

[Zanthorus]

One thing that interests me reading the MIA statement, it's not as if MIA have been hosting the MECW without permission until now, their statement claims that they were given permission by L&W when they asked nine years ago. I wonder what changed since then to make L&W do an about face?

[Per Levy]

One thing that interests me reading the MIA statement, it's not as if MIA have been hosting the MECW without permission until now, their statement claims that they were given permission by L&W when they asked nine years ago. I wonder what changed since then to make L&W do an about face?

someone said this could be the reason:

https://www.marxists.org/admin/hd-external/

[Dagoth Ur]

Unfortunately we live in capitalism where leftist publishers can't just print things for free. I long to live in a world where Progress Publishers is what it once was.

[Zanthorus]

Unfortunately we live in capitalism where leftist publishers can't just print things for free.

Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen, und ich liebe Deutsche Literatur. I'd be willing to put my measly language skills to use for free if it meant more people could read Marx, I can't be the only one either (At least, I hope not given the outcry over this whole ordeal). I don't think 'we live in capitalism' is much of an excuse. The needs of the workers movement come before the institutional needs of publishing houses.

[Kaoxic]

I thought it was about M.I.A.

So did I!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Unfortunately we live in capitalism where leftist publishers can't just print things for free.

This is, of course, true, but then again, I would rather that the "quarterly journal of social-democracy" not be printed. There is a difference between funding the continued printing of your central organ - like I said, all of the groups that post their journals on the ETOL webpage seem to manage just fine - and running a for-profit operation like Axelrod with his revolutionary kefir, or more pertinently, Pathfinder with their extortion prices.

[Five Year Plan]

L&W have been clear about their reasoning behind this move. They are in preparation to strike a relatively lucrative contract for the digital provision of the collected works to university libraries through some digital company, which has made the removal of the content in question from MIA a part of their requirements. It has nothing to do with their cop-out excuse about keeping M&E works in the "public commons" or any such thing. In fact, it's just the opposite: the point is to clear from public access to sell it privately to universities who can afford to pay the huge premiums that L&W and their contractors are envisioning.

[Q]

One thing that interests me reading the MIA statement, it's not as if MIA have been hosting the MECW without permission until now, their statement claims that they were given permission by L&W when they asked nine years ago. I wonder what changed since then to make L&W do an about face?
L&W is financially nearing bankruptcy if things keep going the way they do. So, they now started to enforce the part of the copyright they have on the MECW (they share the copyright with two other publishers which collaborated to finish this translation).

But this of course is completely counterproductive as L&W depends on a lot of unpaid work people just do for "the cause". These people will stop doing this if this the attitude of L&W.

[BIXX]

Dude I love History is a Weapon holy shit. "Because we're jerks" was the best justification I've heard, ever :)

[blake 3:17]

Dude I love History is a Weapon holy shit. "Because we're jerks" was the best justification I've heard, ever :)

Word.