Under Copyright law, certain uses (such as screen sharing from, reproducing, or excerpting from) of MA’s literature are authorized and no written permission is needed. See MA’s IP Policy for more on these authorized uses. Any use of MA’s Copyrighted Materials must be (1) with proper written credit; and (2) MA’s Copyrighted Material may not be altered, revised, or changed in any way besides excerpting.
Making any changes to MA’s Copyrighted Material when reproducing, copying, excerpting, “screen-sharing” or otherwise using it is legally prohibited, and a violation of MA’s Copyright rights. As is the case with MA’s Trademarks, MA World Services has a duty under the Twelve Concepts for Service (Concept Eight), Twelve Traditions (Tradition Four), and other policies to enforce MA World Services’ legal rights, MA World Services has a duty to follow legal advice provided to it, and enforce its IP right, as part of being “entrusted with the responsibility to make final decisions” regarding finance and business decisions, which are issues that “affect MA as a whole” thereby exempting those issues from the generally broad autonomy granted to MA entities. MA entities have the autonomy under MA’s Fourth Tradition to use the group conscience to shape their meetings in many ways, but they are not able to change MA’s Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions or other literature in any way when using or screen-sharing them.
MA’s Copyrighted literature, such as the Twelve Traditions, Twelve Steps, and Life with Hope, form the foundation of MA’s program of recovery, and so it is therefore important that despite the differences between meetings, those essential elements remain consistent from meeting to meeting. This helps preserve MA unity (Tradition One) and helps “carry the message” of recovery (Tradition Five) by avoiding the confusion that having different versions of MA’s Twelve Steps or Life with Hope in different meetings might cause. MA’s Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions can be considered the embodiment of the MA program of recovery (and without the Steps and Traditions, we would not have MA).
Diluting MA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions by having different versions from meeting to meeting is detrimental to MA unity, MA as a whole, and the program of recovery. This is also why MA’s founders put the heightened procedures for changing MA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in the Service Manual and Bylaws. To allow changes to be made in any meeting would go against the intention of MA’s founding members.
In founding MA, multiple different MA groups came together who had formed separately in different areas, each with separate versions of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. In the interest of MA unity, carrying the message, and other Traditions and principles of the program, the groups that came together to form what is now “Marijuana Anonymous,” compromised, came to a group conscience and agreed on one unified version of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (as well as one name, and other unifying characteristics) with a requirement in the MA Bylaws and Service Manual that 3/4 of groups voting be in favor of any future changes to the Steps and Traditions due to their fundamental importance to the MA program. Service Manual, Ver. 8.0, pg. 51-52.
Additionally, A.A. is the legal owner of the copyrights to the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts for Service. MA was granted express permission to use and adapt these materials for the MA program, such as by replacing alcohol with marijuana. However, MA groups/meetings or districts/regions cannot individually make changes to A.A.’s copyrighted Twelve Steps or Twelve Traditions. Changing these materials violates A.A.’s copyrights, and risks harming MA’s reputation and relationship with A.A. It also places MA at risk of being sued for violating A.A.’s copyrights, which would greatly affect MA as a whole. If MA wishes to make changes to these materials as an entire fellowship, using the fellowship-wide voting procedure, then MA can seek permission from A.A. to make those further adaptations to the Steps and Traditions. However, this cannot be done on a meeting by meeting basis, and the procedure for holding a fellowship-wide vote set forth in MA’s SM and Bylaws must be utilized.
Accordingly, if any MA member, meeting, group, region or district wishes to reproduce or otherwise use any of MA’s copyrighted material with changes, they must obtain written permission from [email protected]. However, use of MA’s copyrighted materials without alterations (beyond excerpting and with proper credit) is permitted without permission.
And if you do wish to pursue proposing changes to the Twelve Traditions and Twelve Steps consistent with the process set forth in the Service Manual, Ver. 8.0, pg. 51-52 and Appendix I: Foundation Documents, contact the Conferences & Conventions Trustee and the Agenda Committee at [email protected] or [email protected] and/or the Policies and Procedures Trustee at [email protected] for more information on the process.