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Revision/update (1/98) of =inv0596i.grt (which was not circulated)
No preceeding =inv*i.* docs
N.B.  The =inv0196*.* series is obsoleted by the inv0596*.grtseries.           

The following tentative remarks represent reflections on variousmanagerial aspects of the project of archiving and distributingthe teachings or R. Shlomo Carlebach.

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SOURCES:

	Again, I must urge that anyone circulating teachings of R.Shlomo Carlebach include an adequate notation of source; andcarefully distinguish full-text from excerpt, and distinguishquote (from tape, transcript or input), edit, recollection, andparaphrase.
	That is a requirement of responsible scholarship.  In someareas of traditional religous Judaism it is scrupulously followed;in other areas, often but not always due to historical accident,it is not.
	In some rather exceptional cases a paraphrase has advantagesover a verbataim presentation. 
	However, a responsible editor should enable a scholarlyminded reader to compare his/her edit with the verbatim.  That iseasily done by juxtaposed ("hypertext") presentation on disc, CD,or possibly an exceptionally large website.
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THE QUESTION OF SAFEGUARDING REPUTATION

	It hass been suggested that careless &/or amateurishpublication could sabotage R. Shlomo's past and/or potentialreputation.  
	One might note that some teachings of R. Moshe Feinstein arecurrently presented in popular format in Ohr Somayech's Ohrnet;and that Lubavitch, which seems to have done an exemplary job inpreserving and organizing the teachings of their Rebbe, presentshis teachings in popular format.

	I would suggest that to be an intellectual, much less anacademician,  is to continually train onself to disregarddistortions of meaning.  

	The question of safeguarding the reputation of a great andinnnovative thinker/speaker/writer is an aspect of the problem ofeditting.        

	Well:  a lion runs free on the Golan.

	I think here that good faith and good taste are an adequatesafeguard.
	We all, of course, do, say, and write some things that wewould not like retold & retailed.
	But there is a demonstrated risk (the 'rosh katan' factor)that followers will chop down and co-opt a great and innovativethinker to their own scale.  
	In working with R. Shlomo Carelbach teachings, one oftenfinds that an apparently offhand, unconventional, humorous, oreven personal  side-remark is a key to glimpsing a furtherdimension of his teachings (or "being", as some would say), and toa greater appreciation of the relevance of those teachings to ourown lives.  It can be rather a comfort, and sometimes a help,  tolearn that a person of unquestionable stature also wrestled withpersonal problems.                     

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FURTHER NOTES ON ARCHIVING:

Tapes and input teachings should be housed in the same Archive, sothe input can be checked against the source-tape.
Of course there must be multiple back-up archives.
For tapes, duplicate archives should be maintained, in USA andIsrael.  
	Tapes contributed to Archive = Archive G1; those serve asmasters for Archive G2, and are then retired and brought out onlyto make further masters, and for scholars' emergency reference,when a passage is unclear from the next-generation tape.
	The G2 set serves as Masters for customer copies.
That could serve as a source of funds for a bona fide CarlebachFoundation. 

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A NOTE ON CORRECTIONS TO INPUT DOCS:
	Corrections, whether made on input docs or on output, shouldbe listed as follows:  Citing the docname and page, quote theincorrect entence (or misspelled word, or garbled quotation fromHebrew),  then state the correction.
	As suggested in =shm9801:  Corrections should be madedirectly on an input doc; but then the corrector must type a noteat the top of the doc, indicating that corrections were made, andnoting date.  The docname should then be changed, preferably byincrementing the last charcter in the leftside-docname; so eg=sh9312ha is renamed =sh9312hb.
	Although incrementing the rightside-docname would be muchmore elegant, the problem is that EinsteinWriter (W.EXE)automatically names all backup copies with suffix .BAK . 
                                          


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THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT DUE AND OF COPYRIGHTS

	I am concerned here only with teachings, not with more orless pirated tapes of songs and concerts.  In that area, familyand associates of R. Shlomo Carlebach may have a reasonable andjustifiable concern and complaint. 
	The question of the sale of recordings of concerts seemsproblematic; these have been appearing locally in one-timereleases of 60-minute tapes, sold for about $10 each.  
                                                       
	Again:  the rest of this memo concerns only teachings:
	For an analysis of the complexity of this question, cf. mymemo =goldrush, where I argue on a largely but not exclusively`value-added' basis that all those who play in part in theproduction of a given teaching -- from the couple who gotthemselves married, to the drudge who types the transcript, and onto the nerds who work it through computer -- have some claim,unless previous engaged and paid as an employee, to potentialprofits, and arguably to the opportunity to realize profit fromthat involvement.

	As to how much is owed:  I'd say that 4 pages an hour (where1 page = 25 60 character (= 12 5-letter 'words') = 1500 bytes =300 `words' per page) is about par for a typist, on a daily basis. So that applies to the credit due for inputting typescripts andmanuscruots, 
	As to editting, I'd say that one can edit about as fast asone can type, which should be about 4 pages/hour.   And anyhow,editting is closer to fun than to work.
	As for adding references to R. Shlomo texts, that would be amitzva.
	As to transcribing tapes:  I don't really know.  With a clearstudio recording, one can transcribe a tape in about a day.  Atypical R. Shlomo live teaching ("shiur") seems to take me about aweek, but I haven't kept close count.
	All transciptions require at least two start-and-stop passes;the final pass is for proof-reading. 
	As to what is fair payment for having hosted a gathering,made the recording, preserved the tape, or what-not, I couldn'tsay.  
 
	I have no idea how much money Yael MeSinai, nor AronsonPress, NETted from the publication of 'Shlomo's Stories.'  Thatmight serve as a high-water mark for this discussion; it isunlikely that any other R. Shlomo publication would be nearly asprofitable.  Yael struck a good balance between popularization andauthenticity; Aronson produced a beautifully designed book with anexceptional cover; Aronson seems to have excellent distribution;and publication was exceptionally timely.

	I've argued that teachings ought to be presented not inhardcopy but on CD-ROM; the sales of such CD-ROMS are likely to bea function of the bells and whistles; so it's unlikely thatrelease of a bare-bones disc of verbatim teachings would havesignificantly reduced anyone's potential profits on presentlyunpublished texts (except insofar as unpublished texts are, as itwere, held for ransom.)
	(A similar consideration would apply, though less clearly andstrongly, to the question of distribution and (problematically)possible publication of teachings that have been commerciallyreleased on casette.)  

	My guess is that the chance of commercial publication, muchless significantly profitable commercial publication,  of muchmore than one or two volumes of teachings, is slight.   TheBratslav Research Institute should have a sense of that market. My guess is that, unless Aronson makes a major pro bono effort,the chance is slight of getting much more than a book or two of R.Shlomo teachings published in authentic form. 
 
	Estimating a book at 250 pages, setting a standard page at 25lines of 60 characters=60 bytes=12 'words', taking a standard`word' as 5 characters, a 'standard book' would be 375K=75,000words.  Estimating (top-of-the-head) a transcribed tape as 50K ofteachings, that means about 7 teachings per book.  I find about1.2 Mb in \WITTTURF (to 2/95); 0.5 Mb in \LEARNING, 0.6 Mb in\RG1096, an estimated 0.4 Mb in \YAKAR (not inclluding many Yakarteachings not +transcribed).  The editted teachings previouslypublished in HBG and CNS, most of which have been posted on theWebsite, should constitute several more volumes; and have alreadybeen selected/editted into a form appropriate for generaldistribution.

   At best one might get one book published; and the pressures toreduce authenticity might be strong.
	I supposed R. Shlomo's collected teachings would take dozensof volumes. 
                        
	If the goal is commerical publication preserving the highestintellectual standards, I do not think one could do better than,nor nearly as well as, Aaronson.
	`Vanity press' publication would be possible; but expensive,and I don't think vanity presses make any significant effort atpublication.
	Setting up one's own press might be possible; but extremelyexpensive and difficult; a matter of "re-inventing the wheel". And that would not even address the question of distribution.
	Again, the one form of private publication that seemspossible would be disc/CD-ROM (with copy-protect, of course.)

	So again, it keeps coming back to a CD-ROM.  For one thing,that's the only affordable way to publish a large volume of work. And the main point is, for a scholar or an editor, CD-ROMs have,suddenly,  obsoleted libraries.   

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	There is a question, which some have raised, of the logicalstatus of ownership; in particular of ownership  of a collectionof `teachings' (a term which needs explication).
	I guess that this question is more complex than some, (myselfincluded, in =goldrush)  have supposed.
	I think this question is an appropriate topic for the sort of`ordinary-language analysis' sketched in J.L. Austin's CollectedPapers, and Wittgenstein's PI.  I might try to do so.
	My guess is that one would start with an analysis of what itis that is owned.
	The various possible rights of of the various possible typesof transfer (including sharing, replicative distribution, andalienation)  are, of course, a function of the various possibletypes of ownership.  
	I guess that the type of ownership may be a partial functionof the mode of acquisition.
	A collection may be acquired in various ways, includingcreation, inheritance, gift, and purchase.   
	To the extent that the property in question is (analyable as)complex, claims of exclusive ownership are likely to be contrary. One's evaluation of such claims might be related to one'sevaluation of the (explicitly or implicitly) presupposed analysis.
	The preceeding has not been such an analysis; it has been atbest a  sketch, by guesswork, of the form such an analysis mighttake.
	Here I must drop this topic, at least for now.
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APPENDIX NOTE 2:

THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHTS -2 : REPORTED BINDING CONCILIATON:

	First of all:  I am not orthodox, and cannot pretend toproceed from that standpoint. 
	With that caveat, then:

	My understanding, which pending correction I take as aworking understanding, is the following (as qualified by theappended caveat): 


	I am informed that the question of moral copy-rights (asdistinct from legally registered copyright 's) regarding R. Shlomoteachings was resolved in summer 95, in a sort of halachic bindingconciliation, in accord with the halachic principle that althoughthe personal property of Rabbi is inherited by his descendents,his teachings belong to all Israel. I have not seen the text ofthis ruling; I do not know if it was given in English, or if not,whether it is available in either an approved or informal Englishtranslation.  (The ruling included two exceptions:  that thedescendents of the Rabbi ought first be offered an opportunity, tobe exercised within a few weeks of submission,  to vet -- but not,as I understand it, veto -- publication on grounds of inclusion ofdefamatory material; and that 5% of profits (or proceeds) ought tobe tithed to the family, and 5% to some charitable cause.  I seeno grounds to suppose that 'defamatory' is not to be construed inthe usual, narrow, sense; eg prurient; I do not think it couldextend to objections over format of publication, choice ofmaterial published,  nor any reasonable option in theverbatim/conventional continuum.

	It is my impression that this restriction extends only tomaterial intended for commerical publication, not to materialcirculated non-commercially; but I don't know.

	Presumably this ruling does not extend to the music,demonstrably a marketable commodity.

	Appended Caveat (5/96)
	The following expressed the understanding of some persons atthat meeting, immediately following the meeting.  
What occurred in Summer 1995 was not a Bet Din, and cannot quitebe called binding conciliation.  R. Mordechai Tendler presided; R.Zeller was present.  Apparently NC rejected the agreement severaldays later.  Accordingly R. Tendler has not released nor publishedhis opinion.  NC does not want to take this matter to a Bet Din.
Hence the status would seem to be that of an informal conciliationattempt that failed.
	So the halachic opinions expressed there have whatever weighttheir merit provides; but do not have force as rulings of a BetDin.
	An informed source remarked in passing that they aredifferent halachic opinions on the matter discussed at thatmeeting.   I regret and apologize for the fact that I am not aninformable listener on the question of the analysis of the natureand inheritablility of possible `intellectual property'; neitherfrom the standpoint of halacha nor from that of the various bodiesof secular law of the various nations. 
	Note that those who accept halachic law as binding seem totake it as having exclusive jurisdiction. 

	With regard to the question of 'literary estate'/ 'literaryexecutors', I would hope that the form followed withWittgenstein's Nachlass would not here prevail; there, a few folksbuilt careers on keeping most of his work out of circulation forabout 40 years.
	And with regard to the question of source-identification, Iwould hope that these teachings might fare better than those ofHeraklitus.                               

	A few more leftover points, abridged for export:

	The principle has properly been asserted, that commercial netprofitabilty from the Nachlass of a teacher ought to accrueprimarily to his descendents.  But in this case it is not obviousthat practices of the past few years have entirely tended tomaximize that potential profitability, if any. 
	Note that the market is time-dependent, in various functions. In general, one might expect demand to vary inversely both withtime.  It may also vary with the ammount of material incircultion; possibly but not necessarily nor obviosly inversely.

	There is of course a need for a person, or more likely asynergy of persons, to assume the role of Editor-in-Chief; forsuch a role there are a large number of qualified persons, myselfnot included.  Such a role must be assumed constructively; if itis assumed restrictively -- a possibility whose scope decreases,due to the redundancy of Internet communiction -- then anarchy,though less efficient, may prove more productive, and possiblymore constructive.     

	As to the need for a synergy of persons:  briefly, this workis so complex, that it is unlikely that a single person will haveall the necessary knowlege, skills, and energy; it will take asort of cyberspace team effort.  So it is most fortunate, in anon-financial sense, that the Internet has become generallyaccessible at this time. 

	I think it is fair to say that the role envisioned for theCarlebach Foundation has not yet been fulfilled.
	One might have hoped that Yakar (in Israel), and theCarlebach Shul (in NYC) would have assumed far more active roles. And that academic institutions, both secular and religious, wouldhave made some effort to acquire copies of these teachings.     

	As far as I know, the traditional approach with any Jewishreligious thinker is to repeat his teachings as fully, accurately,and widely as possible.
	And there's not much traditional method of profitabilty, thatI know of.  

	I would suggest that distribution of Jewish religiousteachings, especially teachings on time-dependent mitzvot, has atime-dependency which has both recoverable and non-recoverableaspects.  It's better to get a teaching out late than later, ornever; but for every person who would have benefitted from findinga certain teaching at a certain time, and who does not find it atthat time, something remains lost in a way that is, to an extent,unrecoverable. 

                                                     sahaon
                                                     1/15/98




	