by Ed Hubbard
The Common Book of Witchcraft and Wicca was developed through a “crowd funding” project on the IndieGoGo.com site. This section is drawn from the introductory materials describing the book there.
Hi, I am Ed Hubbard, and my project will allow us to create a Common Book of Wicca and Witchcraft. I want this book to be shareable and available to all as an eBook, as well as a print copy. This Common Book will be considered open source, via Creative Commons, and can be widely shared. I feel that this is an important time in our history and we are at a crossroads.
In the legal world of Copyrights, Trademarks, and Digital Rights, we are facing a more restrictive future of written, audio and video based materials, and how they may be used. This bears directly on our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of use. In order to avoid these restrictions, I see the Common Book of Wicca and Witchcraft as able to bypass most of the problems with copyright issues. This will give my fellow Wiccans, Witches, and Seekers the freedom to teach, with quality materials, the basics of our faith. My hope is that you will want this for yourself and your family as well.
Why Wicca? For me, once I accepted Wicca, it changed and saved my life. From my soul, my inner self, I felt healing and understanding that nothing else was ever able to answer, and I discovered how beautiful the natural world is. Being Wiccan as well as a Witch was life affirming and comforting in so many places in my life. It gave me the freedom to believe as I wanted, and since then, I have dedicated myself to teaching. The Common Book of Wicca and Witchcraft is the next step in what I believe can help bring comfort and understanding to so many others.
The Problem:
The current teaching manuals of any coven, circle, or temple — unless they are using their own personal home-grown Book of Shadows — have to be purchased from a publisher, who printed them for the original authors. While this is “standard procedure” for the dissemination of materials such as these in our society, it has produced an “unintended consequence” of many of our faith practices and rituals ending up subject to copyright regulations which potentially cause them to only be able to be shared under certain narrow conditions. And as nominal “ownership” of much of the teaching material slides from the original authors and to corporate entities, the “bean counter” drive to protect intellectual property could make it much more difficult to use any copyrighted material beyond the scope of reading and practice.
In a particular case in 2012, one of our most beloved chants had been being used freely and incorporated in many derivative works over a long period of time. The frequent alteration of the chant, as it was adapted group-to-group, ended up angering its original author, and she actively sought to narrow the usage, and eliminate the various “unapproved” forms of the chant. She was able to do so because the chant was copyrighted in the seventies, and was able to make a legal case.
This is why we want to have a book of common knowledge that allows covens, circles, witan shrines, temples, and groves to teach at least the basics to people who want to learn. This has always been our goal; to provide an education to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
All materials incorporated in the book will be derived from common knowledge, research, and properly annotated and referenced sources. We will have a review panel to ensure the material does not violate copyrights of any authors or publishers. If we are required to have permission to print, we will either acquire permission or we will remove the passages that violate copyright.