Charisma House, the publishers of The Harbinger, the New York Times best-seller by Jonathan Cahn, issues a statement to address misinformation regarding its intellectual property dispute between Charisma House and David James and his publisher The Berean Call.
In a public statement Tessie DeVore, executive vice president of Charisma House, said: “Charisma House, the book group of Charisma Media, has sought a private dialogue with David James with respect to concerns it has regarding the use of its intellectual property in Mr. James’ work. In the first instance, Charisma had concerns regarding Mr. James’ original cover for his critique that was substantially similar to the cover of Rabbi Cahn’s work The Harbinger, published by Charisma House, which would create confusion in the market as to the source and sponsorship of the critique. Mr. James agreed and changed his cover.
“The second instance relates to the amount of original text that may legally be used in a critique of a work under applicable copyright laws. Although the parties respectfully and thoughtfully shared their respective views of a fact-intensive and complicated area of intellectual property law, Mr. James and The Berean Call unfortunately have decided to take this dispute public. Charisma House has pursued the disputed issues in a responsible manner and requested reasonable information in order to evaluate further the scope of the dispute.
“As this issue has spilled into public forums, the dispute has been re-characterized as one in which Charisma House and Rabbi Cahn have sought to suppress the right to criticize The Harbinger and discourage dialogue regarding the work. Because of this misinformation, Charisma House feels compelled to respond in order to make clear its position that any and all dissent, disagreement or dialogue regarding The Harbinger is not only encouraged but also necessary for the continued growth of the body of Christ in today’s world.
“It is also important to note that despite what has been portrayed, the legal counsel involved represents Charisma House and not Rabbi Cahn. Any communication from the attorney to The Berean Call has been initiated by Charisma House and not Rabbi Cahn.
“Both Charisma House and Rabbi Cahn remain confident that this matter can be resolved without the necessity of litigation and in a Christian manner. The parties’ disagreement over intellectual property issues cannot be confused with disagreement over the right to question one’s views of God.”
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