The Forum’s Questions

(To Anyone Who has an "Ear to Hear")

Early this spring trustee Mo Siegel called me. In the course of the conversation, he said that the questions asked by the forum constituted the human authorship necessary for the [Urantia] Foundation to own a copyright.

I could tell Mo really believed that. That his "belief" in the copyright was sincere. (He'd told me, "I always believed in the copyright.")

So I asked him, "How do questions asked by forum members give the Foundation a copyright? If questions asked by the forum members constitute copyrightable human authorship, then the forum members, not the Foundation, would own a copyright."

I asked him to follow a "chain of title" with me:

1. Say the forum members ask questions.

2. Say the forum members assign their copyright rights to the Foundation in the 1950's.

3. The Foundation copyrights the Papers.

4. In 1983 -- at the time of the renewal of the copyright -- EACH FORUM MEMBER would have to re-assign his or her copyright rights over to the Foundation AGAIN.

5. There would be many legal documents on file to prove this "chain of title" from the forum members to the Foundation.

Mo did not want to follow this line of reasoning. He just repeated that he knows the Foundation has a "valid" copyright.

Among the many "holes" in the forum question argument are these:

1. The revelators told the Sadlers to organize a forum. (The revelators "hired" the humans, not the other way around). (On the renewal copyright form, the Foundation claimed that the Urantia Papers were a "work for hire." In court, the Foundation claimed that the contact commission "hired" the revelators.)

(An aside: Why doesn't the Foundation "hire" some revelators again, and order them to write some more Papers for them? Or, why doesn't the Foundation order some midwayers to testify for them, that they "own" the superhuman revelator's copyright?. . .)

2. The revelators told the forum to read the first 57 Papers and then ask questions.

3. None of the forum's questions appear in any recognizable form in the Papers.

To draw a parallel, the "forum authorship" argument is like saying that if a first grade teacher (the revelators) writes a textbook for first grade, then tests her textbook on the first graders in her current class (the forum members), then the copyright belongs to the first graders in that test class--or belongs to anyone the first graders want to assign it to (the Foundation).

But we know that didn't happen.

1. The Foundation even sued a forum member (Bob Burton) for copyright infringement! The Foundation won the case against Burton by claiming that the Urantia Papers were "channeled" through a human subject (the sleeping subject mentioned in the Appendix to Mind at Mischief). In other words, the Foundation trustees were claiming the Papers are "autorevelation," not epochal revelation, even before the renewal of the copyright. Epochal revelation is epochal because it is SUPERHUMAN (the Planetary Prince, Adam and Eve, Melchizedek, Jesus, and the Urantia Papers).

2. There are no "chain of title" documents from the forum to the Foundation. And you can bet a Foundation who speaks nothing but "legalese" would definitely produce documents-- if they had any. (They didn't even invent the forum question argument until years into the Arizona lawsuit.)

3. I personally have a number of documents from forum members saying that I can make an index or do anything I want with the Urantia Papers.

Mo wouldn't listen to me about his forum question fixation--but maybe he'll listen to someone else.

Love, and God bless you,
Kristen