Dear Bhante,

I think in spirit it should be fair to have it on our computer if we have an original copy of it. It's an issue that some people are arguing about these days. Something called "media shift", others being "time shift" and "space shift" I think.

But having it on the Net for all to download could pose a copyright violation issue even if we attached a note saying that it's only for those having an original copy.

Btw, having pondered much in the past about whether intellectual property theft constitute stealing in the Buddhist sense, I still can't agree 100% on either side of the argument. Perhaps this forum is unsuitable for the topic. Hope someone can point me to any material that makes thorough research and provides an objective and convincing conclusion on this. [Let's leave aside Ven Varado's article.]

with respect,
kumaara


At 03:24 AM 28-06-05, Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:

>I expect most of you know about the DPPN which can be found online at
>Mettanet Lanka:
>
>http://www.metta.lk/pali-utils/Pali-Proper-Names/index.html
>
>and at http://www.palikanon.com/
>
>I downloaded the entire dictionary and converted the files to Unicode for
>my own use offline. I would be happy to share this (a 1.86 Mbytes self-
>extracting archive) with others or host it on my webspace if it is legal
>to do so. Does anyone know who owns the rights to this?