—MOOctober 26‚ 1973NO.283A—DO

Rough notes

Copyrighted October, 1973 by The Children of God P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan‚ Puerto Rico 00936

1. YOU'VE GOT TO SELL YOUR SOUL TO THE SYSTEM TO GET THEM TO DO IT FOR YOU!

2. I DON'T WANT TO LOSE THE RIGHTS TO OUR SONGS OR ANYTHING WE HAVE where we cannot produce and sell and distribute them ourselves. I don't want to lose our rights at all. If the System wants to do it their way through their outlets which we don't have, what they do is up to them,—But I don't want any kind of contract that limits us from either productions, sales or anything!

3. Frankly, I think we can do ourselves more good through our own stuff, at least for the time being. When we get good enough where the System wants to produce it to make money on it, they'll be coming begging us and knocking on our door.

4. We have a totally different market from theirs. They don't have to worry about it. We're not peddling them in drugstores, paperback stands, dimestores, bookstores or anywhere else. They can have the bookstores and the works‚ but we want the streets and the mail.

5. There are varying stages of what we can do for ourselves so far as production, distribution, sales representation, promotion, things like that. It just depends on how much we want to get into and at what stage we want to have the job.—We want to get into whatever will reach the most people without leaving us totally out of the benefits. We're going to keep on ministering!

6. You can't kill the goose that laid the golden egg. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of those publishers and producers would like to get all the eggs in one basket if they can, and to hell with the goose!—The best thing for them is sole rights and sole distribution and sole ownership!

7. WE DON'T WANT ANYTHING THAT'S GOING TO TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS! What it comes down to with the present standard system contracts is that if we want to promote it through their channels, worldwide distribution with their professional expertise and every thing‚ it amounts to completely signing over anything that could be done with the material so far as production, recording, sales, distribution, everything. It's a question of: Do we want to sacrifice that material to them, leaving us only the right to distribute the version which they produce?—And in the case of our music all they'll leave us is the right to sing it!—Then you can only sing it under certain conditions as long as you aren't singing it to make money or in a professional sense!—Ha!

8. IF WE'RE GOING TO DISTRIBUTE IT WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET AS MANY DISTRIBUTED‚ BUT WITH OUR SPIRIT-FILLED KIDS BEING LED BY THE LORD THEY GET IT TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE!

9. THE ONLY DEAL WE SHOULD CONSIDER SIGNING A CONTRACT FOR WITH ANY OF THEM IS THAT WE STILL RETAIN OWNERSHIP RIGHTS, COPYRIGHTS AND PUBLISHING RIGHTS! We're the boss!—they serve us, and we won't sign any contract where they tell us what to do, but only where we tell them what to do!—How many they can have, where they can sell it, how many they can sell, and how much we're willing to let them get out of it. In exchange for their use of our product, we get a commission, royalty, and we also get a deal, if possible, where we can buy their particular issues at a reasonable sum‚ which ought to be at least as cheap as what we could pay for it to get printed. If it's not as cheap as what we can print it for ourselves, then why give them anything?

10. I don't care if it's records, books, whatever—we'll take a consignment of so many hundred, thousand or million or whatever ourselves, which we would be willing to pay for at cost, for some little price‚ under the public retail price. In other words, like paying them to have them print it for us. We want a royalty on all of their sales and would want no limitations on our own production and sales. If they don't want to take it on that basis, forget it!

11. The publishers are so and so, and so and so, but THE OWNER OF THE COPYRIGHT IS THE AUTHOR. What we're doing is to authorise them to produce it for us and to market it according to our specifications, but they would not control the publishing rights or control any of our distribution rights! We would have total liberty of distribution and total ownership! They would simply pay us a royalty for its use with their outlets.

12. We should ONLY SIGN A CONTRACT THAT IS TOTALLY FAVOURABLE and exactly the way we want it! We control it and we own it and we want it the way we want it, otherwise forget signing anything!—We'll handle our own! I made definite stipulations time and time again on that. We hold the copyright, and we control the contract, and we keep the ownership and all the rights and all we sign over to them is their right to reproduce and distribute under certain conditions.—And with plenty of remunerations! But that's not to limit our own production, our own distribution and it ought to also include a favourable deal whereby we can buy copies from them at somewhere near the price of what we could have it printed ourselves—otherwise it's no advantage to us at all!

13. I've gone over that time and time again‚ whether it's recordings, books, publications, whatever, the only basis under which we would sign, would give them certain limited publication rights. We're not going to give them any ownership of copyrights or control of copyrights, just authorisation for their publication under certain conditions and with remuneration and a favourable deal on the purchase of copies if possible. WE'RE CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO SIGN OVER TO ANY AGENCY ANY RIGHTS TO COPYRIGHT OR ANY TOTAL RIGHTS TO PUBLICATION OF USE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

14. I'm not about to begin to sign over all of our rights to anything and anybody that does is a fool! And anybody who does in our outfit without authorisation—we'll disown them!

15. If they're not willing to meet our terms, and something which our lawyers can go over with a fine tooth comb and make sure it's all right, then I wouldn't sign anything! mean, WHEN IN DOUBT—DON'T!! If I had the slightest doubt about it or hesitancy about any kind of a deal at all‚ let me tell you, I wouldn't sign one jot or one tittle, nothing!—Amen? Better watch it!—Don't let the Devil's children steal the bread from god's Children!—Amen? And certainly don't let'em steal our rights to even use it!—God bless and keep you and give you wisdom wise as serpents but harmless as doves.—Use it!—Don't abuse it—and don't let them abuse you or God's words! If they can be a help, fine!—But if they want it all and to control and limit it, forget it!—Who needs'em?—They may want the lion's share‚ but don't lose the lamb's—Amen?—We love you!—Pray!—before you leap!—Love,—Dad

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family