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About Copyrights


Everything on this website is protected by copyright law. This means nothing on this website can be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission from Glorian. The exception to this is what in law is called "fair use":

"Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports." - US Government

When you reproduce a quote or excerpt from our books or website, please include the full attribution of the quote, ie. what book or course it is from, and that it is from Glorian. We appreciate including a link to the book or article.

Glorian does not give permission to anyone to reproduce in any form our translations, articles, courses, lectures, videos, or any other content we have made. This is to ensure that our works remain as we made them. Copyright is how the law protects the teachings from being modified or degenerated.

Unfortunately, some people have not understood copyright law, nor have they understood statements made by Samael Aun Weor about his writings. To protect his works and the teachings themselves, it is important that the law is clearly understood.

What is Copyright?

Simply stated, copyright is:

"The legal right to control the production and selling of a book, play, film, photograph, or piece of music." - Cambridge University Press

Copyright is the right of the author of a creative work to copy it. No one else can copy the work, unless that author gives them permission to copy that work. That includes translations, adaptions, quotations, and anything else derived from that work.

Copyright is a separate issue from money made from that work, such as royalties.

Moreover:

"Copyright protection arises automatically as soon as your work is created." -BBC

Copyright protection is automatic, and lasts many years beyond the author's death. After their death, copyright is usually held by the author's family or a legal entity representing them.

Copyright is a basic element of law. It is universal and impartial. Its purpose is to protect an author's creations from theft, modification, and loss. 

By respecting the copyrights of a work, we preserve that work for the future.

“The constitutional purpose of copyright is to facilitate the flow of ideas in the interest of learning. The primary objective of our copyright law is not to reward the author, but rather secure for the public the benefits from creations of authors.” - U.S. House Report, Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988

What Samael Aun Weor Said About Copyrights

"I appreciate the noble purposes of Jose Vicente Marquez, in relation with the matters of editing my books, he suggested that I should be paid royalties as an author of the books. This looks grandiose to me, yet, in the name of the truth, I have to say that I have never demanded such royalties. I have written more than 70 books. The fingers of my hands as you can see, are almost totally destroyed, yet I will continue writing books, and the day when these fingers of my hands are worthless because so much typewriting on the typewriter machine, I will attempt to do it with the toes of my feet. At the present time, my beloved brethren, and forever I renounce, I have renounced, and I will continue renouncing to the author’s royalties. I only wish for these books to be sold at the most cheapest price, to the reach of the poor, to the reach of the ones who suffer and cry; let the most unhappy citizen can afford to get such books with the few coins that he carry in his pockets, that is all. Indeed I have not demanded any salary, I demand nothing for my books, whosoever wants to print my books, let them print them for the good of this suffering humanity. Brethren, I have neither demanded and I will never demand any salary. In the republic of El Salvador, they designated, to master Gargha Kuichines and to my insignificant person whose worth is nothing - because I would not give, not even five cents for my person – a salary, but indeed, in reality I do not want such a salary. Listen, I am a beggar with tuxedo, and I lived from the public alms. The only thing that interests me is to carry the teachings to all the corners of the world, without distinctions of race, sex, creed, caste or color. Let the whole of humanity receive the doctrine, that is all."

Our translator was in the room when these words were spoken, so we have first-hand knowledge of this event. 

Unfortunately, some foolish people interpreted these statements as meaning that Samael Aun Weor renounced his copyrights: his right to reproduce his own books. That is absurd. What he renounced was any interest in making money from his books. This is very clear in his statement. Sadly, someone did not understand what he said, and spread that misunderstanding to others. Then, those misguided people spread this misinterpretation all over the world. We are reminded of a wise paragraph:

"Few lies carry the inventor’s mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth, may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect: like a man, who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who has found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead." - Jonathan Swift (1710)

Why is this important? Because over the years, foolish people have spread the false idea that there are no copyrights on Samael Aun Weor's writings. and subsequently produce their own versions, whether in print or digital formats. They think that by copying and distributing the teachings, they will accrue some benefit.

Firstly, this is inaccurate: there are copyrights on his works. The copyrights are held by his family. 

Secondly, people mistakenly believe that simply uploading copies of the books somewhere will help humanity. We are rewarded for our sacrifices for humanity, for our efforts and struggles, not for merely duplicating someone else's work.

Thirdly, while he did express his aim to make the books available to everyone in the world, he did not authorize anyone to change his writings. Sadly, many have. Being asleep and filled with psychological defects, people make changes to the writings, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes, they translate the works but do not have the level of Being to understand what is actually being said, so their translation fails to convey it. Sometimes, they modify the writings to agree with their own point of view. We know of one case in particular where the person loved Samael Aun Weor's writings, but also loved having multiple sexual partners, so he modified all the books to agree with his preference for adultery and polygamy. He even sold these books on famous online stores. Imagine the karma...

The writings have been adulterated to spread mistaken ideas about spiritual politics, supposed "masters," etc.

There are many cases of people trying to make money on the books, or trying to attract followers or attention, or distributing modified versions to discredit the teachings. 

The result of all these missteps is that now there are uncountable modifications to the books and writings of Samael Aun Weor on the internet, in many languages, and since people do not question what they read on the internet, they do not know they are reading adulterated books and writings. Again, imagine the karma... Someone thinks they are doing good by putting PDFs on a website, but do not know they are actually hurting people with bad translations.

Legally speaking, even though Samael Aun Weor made those comments, that is not a legal basis for copying his books in any form, whether print or digital. The law is the law: the right to reproduce his books is still protected by law. To copy his books legally, one would need legal permission from the copyright holders to do it. (By the way, that is not Glorian).

This also true of translations.

Translations and Copyrights

A translation is a copy, a derivative of an original work. Thus, legally, the translator needs permission from the copyright holder to create a translation.

Our translator was asked by Samael Aun Weor and Litelantes to translate all of his books to English. Throughout the decades of making his translations, Samael Aun Weor guided him, answering his questions and clarifying difficult passages so that the English editions would be accurate and reliable. Due to this, you may find that the English editions are superior to the Spanish.

Our English translations are original works by our translator. Copyright law states that the copyright for a translation belongs to the translator. In other words, Glorian owns the copyright to all of our translations. No one has the right to copy Glorian's translations unless given permission by Glorian. Similarly, no one has the right to reproduce any of our original works like lectures and videos, unless given permission by Glorian.

We have never given permission to anyone to reproduce our translations or any of our original works, whether as print books, pdfs, websites, videos, audio books, etc. Any such copies of our works were made without our permission. This is also true of any translations of our website or books: Glorian only produces English content. If you see our works in any other language, it was not made by us, and we cannot verify its authenticity.

Many people have copied our works to make their own "versions" of the books, whether on websites, print, as audio books, pdfs, etc. None of them were made with Glorian's permission. We do not know if they have modified the writings, but it is likely, since people who take things without permission are also likely to modify them.

People have made videos of themselves teaching our courses, reading them on camera as if they were the author of the course. They do not acknowledge the lectures came from Glorian. They misrepresent themselves and misrepresent the teachings. In short, they are misleading people.

We have also seen people copy our courses and publish them as books, with their name as the author, and with no mention of Glorian.

Why is this important? Our sole aim is to ensure that humanity receives accurate teachings. When someone copies our work without our knowledge, we also do not know if they are modifying it or corrupting it. When someone takes something without permission, one has to wonder what their intentions are.

In each of these cases (and many more besides), people with good intentions are breaking the law, making fools of themselves, and worse, misleading humanity.

This brings up another myth about copyrights: some people believe they can modify someone else's work enough that it becomes their own. This is a myth, and there are plenty of people who have lost court cases who can explain this to you. You only own the copyright to wholly original work. If you take something made by someone else and without their permission reproduce it somewhere else, or worse, change it a little, then you have broken the law. That is not our opinion; that is the law. And, at some moment or another, you will answer to the law. 

Further, to reach perfection is equal to being one with the law. If someone does not respect terrestrial laws, they certainly do not respect the celestial laws.

Why do we protect the copyright of our translations? To protect the teachings, to protect you and anyone else who wants to study the teachings. By protecting the copyright, we protect the authenticity and integrity of the teachings. This is a grave responsibility, whose legal ramifications extend very far beyond terrestrial law. We respect the terrestrial laws because we know that they are extensions of the celestial laws.

Glorian has been challenged many times in the celestial courts; people have brought complaints to the judges about our books, lectures, and more. We welcome such challenges, and encourage anyone who does not like our works to bring their case to the celestial courts and we will happily discuss it there.

Finally, please do not ask us for permission to translate Samael Aun Weor's writings to your language. If you want to translate his writings, you must start from his original Spanish, for which we cannot give you the right.

Having explained all of this, let us also state that there are many who do not like these laws and do what they want anyway. To that, we simply recite the ancient phrase:

"According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay..." - Isaiah 59