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NEW YORK (CNN) — It's to be titled the "Al Qaeda Reader." Publisher Doubleday says it will include writings by Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, from the 1990s.

News of the book prompted at least one publisher to raise a red flag about profits.

"How do you deal with something like this, that is the issue I suppose most people wonder about. Should a company make money from Osama bin Laden and his colleagues?" says Peter Osnos of publisher Public Affairs.

Until Thursday night, Doubleday hadn't decided about profits. Friday, it said it would donate all net income of U.S. sales to a charity or charities to be named.

"We have a historic opportunity to make the works of these dreaded terrorists known to all Americans and at the same time provide relief to the victims as a result," Doubleday said in a statement.

But the agent for the translator who discovered the writings says his client and Doubleday have every right to profit from the book.

"I don't think that Doubleday should be expected or feel compelled to donate this money. I think whatever profits they make are rightfully theirs, and they're doing ... a public service by publishing this book," says Glenn Hartley of Writers' Representatives.

Hartley's client, Raymond Ibrieham, found the writings at the Library of Congress where he works, and thought the public should read them.

"It's the ruthless nature — no holds barred, no such thing as cruelty — attitude that Zawahri has that's most disturbing and enlightening," says Hartley.

Al-Zawahri was indicted in the U.S. embassy bombings in 1998 in Kenya where Edith Bartley lost her father and brother.

"As a victim, a person who lost half of her family, I think the public needs to have as much information as possible about al Qaeda, about bin Laden, and about our government and how we really did slip down on the job in terms of protecting our citizens," Bartley says.

Some compare this to publishing Hitler's "Mein Kempf."

Harvey Kushner, author of "Holy War on the Home Front," says, "The benefits are to understand what we are facing as a free society. Would we rather give up our freedom not to hear the vicious words of Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden or al-Zawahiri?"

by Paul D. Colford
New York Daily News

IT'S COMING TO A bookstore near you – the radical views of Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

New York publisher Doubleday said yesterday that next year it will release "The Al Qaeda Reader," a history of the terror network in its leaders' own words, but it insisted none will be paid for the writings.

"We would never pay royalties to Osama Bin Laden or any other international terrorist," Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz said.

Instead, Herz said, Doubleday worked out its deal for the book with the translator from the Arabic – Raymond Ibrahim, a library technician at the Library of Congress.

"We expect a broad readership – anyone who wants to understand the mind of our greatest enemy," Herz said.

On hearing some of the material dates to 1991, Monica Gabrielle, whose husband, Richard, perished on 9/11, said, "It's a little late, don't you think? . . . I can only ask, what took so long?"

Others who lost loved ones on 9/11 had a range of reactions.

"People who promote terrorism are an evil and a cancer in our society," said Jack Lynch, whose firefighter son, Michael, died at Ground Zero. "Therefore, anything that promotes their agenda shouldn't be distributed in this country."

But Lee Ielpi, whose son Jonathan also was among the firefighters lost on 9/11, said he welcomed the book.

"Anything the general public can read to emphasize how severe these terrorists are in their threats to destroy us would be beneficial," Ielpi added. "We're becoming complacent as it is."

The Doubleday volume will be drawn mainly from two books that were published in the Mideast in the 1990s and have been studied in U.S. government circles since 9/11.

The older text is "The Battles of the Lion's Den of the Arab Partisans in Afghanistan," a collection of interviews with Bin Laden and his top associates about the origins of Al Qaeda.

The other primary source will be "Bitter Harvest," one of several books by al-Zawahiri, who criticizes Egypt's moderate Muslim Brotherhood and tries to justify jihad.

Ibrahim'sNew York literary agent, Glen Hartley, likened the Al Qaeda volume to former Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung's "Little Red Book," which was sold widely years ago. [email protected]

Is Doubleday violating Bin Laden's copyright?

by Brendan I. Koerner
Slate

Doubleday, an American publishing house owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, is planning to releaseThe Al Qaeda Reader in 2006. The book will consist primarily of translated writings by Osama Bin Laden and Egyptian Jihad founder Ayman al-Zawahiri, along with a smattering of other jihadist statements. Is Doubleday violating Bin Laden's copyright?

Probably not, as the book's contents most likely constitute fair use of the materials. For starters, it's pretty clear that Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri do, indeed, hold copyrights on their writings. The Wall Street Journalreported that the main Bin Laden contribution consists of a book published in Egypt, while al-Zawahiri's section is taken from a book previously published in Jordan. Both of those nations are parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, so those copyrights are valid in the United States. (If any of the additional material was written or published in a non-Berne country, such as Afghanistan, then copyright might not be an issue.)

The fact that the writings in question were created by wanted criminals really doesn't enter into the equation. American courts have ruled that even illegal speech, such as, say, an obscene movie, is worthy of copyright protection.

Were Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri to somehow press for royalties, Doubleday's natural argument would be that their publication of the writings constitutes fair use. The publisher would have one strike against it, in that it will apparently be quoting 100 percent of the source material, rather than mere snippets. Usually, the more of an excerpted work that is reprinted, the less likely the resulting product is to be considered fair use.

But other factors seem to be in Doubleday's favor. Courts look closely at the nature of the use and whether it benefits the public. In this case, the publisher could effectively argue that it is important to the national debate for the thoughts of the country's enemies to be widely disseminated. There is also a considerable transformative element to the book—that is, all the work that is being put in by the translator, Raymond Ibrahim, who will own the copyright for The Al Qaeda Reader. The more transformative a work is deemed, the more likely it is to gain fair-use protection.

A court might also consider that it's unlikely that Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri would choose to make their works available in the United States independently. Since that scenario is so improbable, a judge could rule that Doubleday's approach was the only way for this valuable information—however abhorrent it is to many—to reach the public.

Lastly, in making fair use decisions, courts consider whether the publication will affect the commercial prospects for the original work. Since there are probably few Americans who would buy the original Arabic books, and Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri presumably have no plans to authorize English translations on their own, that factor tilts in Doubleday's favor, too.

In the implausible event that Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri sues to stop publication of The Al Qaeda Reader, it's unlikely that a court would order such an injunction. If anything, it might simply ask that the original copyright holders receive some sort of payment. But this scenario is entirely academic—if Bin Laden showed up in civil court to argue his case, he'd obviously be arrested within milliseconds.

Bonus Explainer: Another bit of unpopular speech, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, has an interesting copyright history of its own. An English translation of the book, which removed the most inflammatory instances of anti-Semitism, was made available in the United States in the 1930s. Future California Sen. Alan Cranston, then a reporter, read the translation and realized that it had been excised of its most wicked parts. So he made his own annotated translation and was promptly sued by Adolf Hitler for copyright infringement—Hitler was making millions off royalties from the book's sales worldwide and didn't want any competitors watering down the market. An American judge sided with the dictator and ordered publication stopped.

Next question?

Explainer thanks Wendy Gordon of the Boston University School of Law and Thomas G. Field Jr. of the Franklin Pierce Law Center.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for Gizmodo. His first book,Now the Hell Will Start, is out now.