Is it illegal to write books with same title and characters the book is no longer being written by author?
Okay, there is obviously a lot of copyright advice being given from people who don't know about it :-) Let's break down your question: Is it illegal to write a book using the title of a book already written? No. Titles are not copyrightable, so if you wanted to write a book called "The Princess Diaries" or "The Last Juror" or "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," you could. Cover art IS copyrightable, though, including the way the font of the title is written. However: " . . . using the same characters . . ." Probably not a good idea. Characters in a book or movie, along with a series/brand title like "Star Trek" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," are able to be trademarked. This isn't the same as copyright - while the purpose of copyright is to keep someone from stealing your work outright, the purpose of a trademark is to avoid "brand confusion." That means you can't make your own books based on Captain Picard and the Starship Enterprise, even if you don't call them "Star Trek," because a reasonable person might get confused between your book and a book licenced by Star Trek (and therefore earning the Star Trek trademark holders money). So although you could name your book the same thing as a book already written (although not including any trademarked parts of the name, like a movie series title), you probably couldn't use the same characters or the same setting, and you couldn't make your book's title in the same color or font as the original, and you couldn't make the artwork the same or even similar. If you tried anyway, you would a) have a really, really hard time getting it published, and b) probably receive a "cease and desist" letter from the holder of the trademark. This means they give you a reasonable amount of time (usually about a month) to remove whatever you wrote from the Internet, bookstores, or wherever, and to give them any money you made from it. These requests are expensive to fight, so even if they wouldnt' win a lawsuit, it's usually cheaper just to take down your work. This does happen to a lot of fanfiction authors - if the trademark holders don't defend their trademark by asking everyone else to stop using it, a judge could rule their trademark isn't valid anymore.
JWs: Why not disfellowship 1/3 of the Governing Body who disagree with new light?
As you may know, Ray Franz was disfellowshipped from the Governing Body for disagreeing with at least SOME of the WTS's doctrine. A two-thirds majority vote is required for the Governing Body to adopt "new light" or new policy that all JWs must follow and agree with. So here's what puzzles me: If 2/3 of the Governing Body agrees with the new light that has been voted into law and 1/3 of the members disagree with the new rules, then doesn't that automatically qualify the minority group for disfellowshipping if they are on the record as being opposers? Do the Governing Body members who voted against the new light have to PRETEND to agree with it once the law has been made official? It seems to me that more members of the Governing Body (besides Franz) should have been disfellowshipped, unless they are just flat-out liars! Imagine how the minority group would be confronted by the majority after the vote: "pro-light" member: "So, you voted against the new light, eh? Do you still oppose it now that your viewpoint has been defeated?" "con-light" member: "Oh no, not at all. We Jehovah's Witnesses stick together no matter what, so I'm with you man! Forget what I said before." "pro-light" member: Okay then, but you had better not speak to ANYONE about your former opposing opinions or ... well, you know what the consequences are for independent thinking." Weird!