Thanks Michael for that (although I haven't heard of the Beaver
Scriptures and my search engines gave no help).
Even here in New Zealand where we're still (sort of) under the King, no
one here would consider not using the KJV, and we most certainly
wouldn't be anticipating a court case if we used it in an app.
I'm sure there's many silent listeners/readers/list-lurkers here like me
who would find 1/ some of the views on copyright expressed earlier on
the list very one-sided and out of character for an org like CrossWire,
and 2/ find the secrecy even more out of character, and 3/ finding the
UK-centric character of some of the discussion quite out of character
for an org with so many international resources (and even for me in a
British CommonWealth country it seems strangely narrow).
Can the source text at least be passed to someone outside of the UK to
place onto GitHub? I'll volunteer (or I'm sure many others would also).
Let's get the Bible out to more people, and with more accuracy and more
linked resources.
Blessings,
Robert Hunt
Freely-Given.org
On 17/01/23 10:01, Michael Johnson wrote:
On 1/16/23 06:23, David Haslam wrote:
And yes - it remains the case that the text of the KJV is protected
by Royal Letters Patent within the United Kingdom, and that in
principle, this copyright assertion should be upheld by
subsequent mutual treaties in those nations that were signatories of
the Berne Convention.
A minor correction with major implications: The KJV and Book of Common
Prayer Letters Patent are NOT a copyright with respect to the Berne
Convention. Those have no legal effect outside of the UK. Full stop.
BS/BFBS opinions notwithstanding. The latter organization, and
especially certain persons within them, have already proven that it is
willing to stretch copyright law to the extent of committing
copyfraud, so I don't trust their opinions. Case in point: the Beaver
Scriptures. One could also argue that King James said nothing about
digital copies, but only printing, which is not necessarily a lame
point. All REAL copyrights expire. The term may exceed a lifetime, but
they do expire.
In the unlikely event that I wanted to print KJV Bibles and import
them into England or Wales, or if I wanted to print them within those
countries, I would care about the very old Letters Patent about that.
In no other case do they affect me or my Bible distribution decisions.
There is no evidence of anyone trying to enforce those Letters Patent
outside of England and Wales, except perhaps in other parts of the UK,
let alone succeeding. I have, however, had a two Bible Societies
challenge some texts I have online. In one case, I produced written
permission to share the text. In the other, I produced evidence that
the work was permanently and irrevocably in the Public Domain. I'm
very careful about copyright law, and fully aware of its extreme
complexity in an international context. I'm also not intimidated by
copyfraud
<https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-81-number-3/copyfraud/>.
--
signature
Aloha,
*/Michael Johnson/**
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