Q&A: A Friend’s Course
A Friend’s Course
Question
Hello Rabbi,
A.
I wanted to ask: I have a friend who took a professional course that costs 15,000 NIS, and he has a friend who took a different course from the same company that also costs 15,000 NIS.
They exchanged the recordings between themselves. Now I’m friends with one of them, and he passed both courses on to me as well.
I wanted to ask whether I’m allowed to watch the course.
If not, is it still possible to watch it, and if it ends up helping me seriously in my work, then I would notify that company and pay them afterward?
(After all, 15,000 NIS is not that much money if it genuinely helps my work in a serious way.)
Because this course is professionally related to what I do, but I’m not sure whether it will even be relevant or not. Also, it’s not clear to me what the theft is here, since the friend already paid for it. And he isn’t distributing it to the whole world, only to me.
B. That same friend wants to watch the course again with me in order to review the material, because according to him, at that point in his life he wasn’t very knowledgeable in the field. Am I allowed to join him?
C. I have written material from another company that also charges a lot of money for a professional course, and it has an extensive PDF summary. The summary has my name watermarked all along all the pages, as if to make me afraid to pass it on to others. At the time I asked the manager of the course company, and he said it’s forbidden to pass it on to others. I wanted to ask whether it can be given to that same friend, and likewise regarding the above. Seemingly, how is this different from a notebook that I write in during class?
Why is someone who paid for something forbidden to pass on knowledge? For example, when you buy a book, what’s the problem with passing it on to someone else??
D. The one who financed the course I took was the company I work for, and that same friend is also another employee in the company, but the company did not finance the training for him. Would that perhaps make it permissible to pass the PDF material and slides on to him? Since, so to speak, the company bought the training (for me).
Best regards,
Y.K.
Answer
A. It is obviously forbidden. What difference is there between distributing it to the world and passing it on to you? It’s only a quantitative difference. In my opinion, it is also forbidden even to try it without the company’s permission.
B. No. For the same reason.
C. As for your own summary, it really is hard to forbid it. But still, you’re not merely passing along knowledge; it is also structured and edited according to the method of the teaching company. Therefore, in my opinion, it is not proper to do so.
D. I don’t see a difference.