[sword-devel] NIV Sword Module - I am happy to host this despite legality

[David Kennedy]

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[Gabriel M. Beddingfield]

small Internet hosting company. As I do not believe the word of God can be
copyrighted (as it is the inspired work of God) I am more than happy to
host this module on my servers despite what Zondervan may say.

You may not believe it, but it is true. The scripture compells us to obey
the law, and the law says that this is stealing (something else the
scripture condemns).

Rom 13:1 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is
no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God.

If you do this thing, it is not only a sin but hinders the ability of Sword
to carry out its mission.

Further, Zondervan has every right to charge for its translation:

1Cor 9:9-11 For it is written in the law of Moses, (1) Thou shalt not muzzle
the ox when he treadeth out the corn. Is it for the oxen that God careth,
or saith he it (1) assuredly for our sake? Yea, for our sake it was
written: because he that ploweth ought to plow in hope, and he that
thresheth, to thresh in hope of partaking. If we sowed unto you spiritual
things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things?

And:
1Tim 5:18 For the scripture saith, (1) Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he
treadeth out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his hire.

Peace,
Gabriel

[Leon Brooks]

Post by Gabriel M. Beddingfield
the law says that this is stealing

No. Stealing involves the original owner not having the item stolen, and
thus being deprived of its use. This is not stealing.

The law says that this is illegal copying. David should be delighted to
host the KJV, YLT, RSV etc, and should not be illegally copying nor
providing illegal copies of copyright-restrcited translations.

Post by Gabriel M. Beddingfield

As I do not believe the word of God can be copyrighted (as it is
the inspired work of God)

Indeed, you are correct. The word of God cannot be copyrighted.

Unfortunately, all we have to hand is translations and arrangements of
that Word, and the translations most definitely can be copyrighted, and
are.

I don't believe that they _should_ be -- except perhaps to underwrite a
Creative Commons licence or the like -- and I believe that copyrighting
a translation (or worse still, copyrighting the arrangement of the
Greek/Aramaic/Hebrew from which the translation was made) opens a major
can of worms which will come back to bite all Christians on the butt
sooner or later, but what actually metters here is that these
translations _are_ copyrighted.

Whether copyrighting the translations is right or not, breaking the law
to distribute a particular translation of the Word of God is most
definitely wrong, and most definitely against the spirit of that same
Word.

If you don't like that, make your own translation from scratch (a useful
substance, scratch), copyright it and donate it to the Public Domain or
distribute it under a CC licence. I've often been tempted. If enough
such versions were made and distributed, it would be very difficult for
anyone to retain or enforce the copyright on any existing version
because of similarities to other translations (called "dilution").

My own perspective is that while funding a translation by restricting
distribution of it and charging for its use is very much akin in spirit
to the money-changers at the Temple, such translations have always
leaned towards Higher Criticism, and so the restricton of their
distribution is not the unalloyed negative which it might otherwise
have been.

There are many ways of funding a translation which are not at such
discord with the spirit of the Word, and they should by all means be
used.

Part of the fault lies with our so-called "intellectual property" laws.

There was no safe way at the time of publication that the author of,
say, The Message or The Clear Word could legally specify something
along the lines of "Go ahead, copy it for all you're worth, just don't
obscure the authorship or set yourself up selling copies in competition
with me."

Nowadays, a Creative Commons Sharealike-NonCommercial licence is
available, has been tested, and has been shown to work in practice many
times over.

Due to problems with trademark law, however, there is no commercially
safe way to allow derivatives or variants. If translation is supported
"out of band", ie, the translation work would all be paid for even if
you sold zero copies, trademark issues are much less likely to be
problematic.

Cheers; Leon

--
http://cyberknights.com.au/ Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/ Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/ Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://osia.net.au/ Member, Open Source Industry Australia
http://linux.org.au/ Member, Linux Australia

[Jonathon Blake]

Post by Leon Brooks
providing illegal copies of copyright-restrcited translations.

Since you mention "copyright restricted translations", is there any
reason why a quarter or so of the texts that The Sword Project offers,
have no copyright information?

Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.

xan

jonathon

[Eicke Godehardt]

I have a similar "Problem" with german bible translations. But most
translations are free for browsing and private usage. So there is no
legal way to provide sword packages. But why not provide scripts, which
allow every user to build up his own package?
Just downloading, some magic sed/awk to transform it to OSIS-XML and
import it into sword?
Is this a possible way? What do you think?

In his love,
.___ _ _
| __(_)__| |.___
| _|| / _| / -_)
|___|_\__|__\___\

Post by Jonathon Blake

Post by Leon Brooks
providing illegal copies of copyright-restrcited translations.

Since you mention "copyright restricted translations", is there any
reason why a quarter or so of the texts that The Sword Project offers,
have no copyright information?
Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.
xan
jonathon

[Greg Hellings]

Technologically it should not be an overly difficult way, but I would be
wary of the way that this could be viewed by the copyright holder and by the
respective authorities. Seeing as how I'm neither a lawyer nor an expert on
"intellectual propery" laws, I don't know, but if someone does have an
authoritative opinion on that, it would be an interesting idea. I have
thought of a similar technology in the past, but never was willing to put
myself at risk for using it until I had a definite legal opinion on the
matter.

--Greg

I have a similar "Problem" with german bible translations. But most
translations are free for browsing and private usage. So there is no
legal way to provide sword packages. But why not provide scripts, which
allow every user to build up his own package?
Just downloading, some magic sed/awk to transform it to OSIS-XML and
import it into sword?
Is this a possible way? What do you think?
In his love,
.___ _ _
| __(_)__| |.___
| _|| / _| / -_)
|___|_\__|__\___\

Post by Jonathon Blake

Post by Leon Brooks
providing illegal copies of copyright-restrcited translations.

Since you mention "copyright restricted translations", is there any
reason why a quarter or so of the texts that The Sword Project offers,
have no copyright information?
Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.
xan
jonathon

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[DM Smith]

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[Eicke Godehardt]

I don't want to circumvent rights. That's why I'm not for sword modules
of copyrighted texts in any form. But to provide a tool to build a
module myself for my use only should be ok, as/when private usage is
alowed. I'm even willing to pay for copyrighted sword modules, but
there is no one available.
Do you think this is a wrong, dubios or questionable? I'm realy not
shure about that.

Shalom,
.___ _ _
| __(_)__| |.___
| _|| / _| / -_)
|___|_\__|__\___\

God gave you your face - you have to smile yourself!

I work on BibleDesktop/JSword so that people can have free, high quality
software to use God's Word fully. I strongly support the rights of
individuals and corporations to their intellectual property and
copyrights. I am unwilling to provide people the tools to circumvent
these rights. I will "avoid the appearance of evil".
JSword plans to provide the ability to work with OSIS bibles directly.
At this time I have not found any OSIS bibles that we can use. It is
kind of hard to develop it with out a good example, so this has not gone
anywhere other than on the wish list.

Post by Greg Hellings
Technologically it should not be an overly difficult way, but I would
be wary of the way that this could be viewed by the copyright holder
and by the respective authorities. Seeing as how I'm neither a lawyer
nor an expert on "intellectual propery" laws, I don't know, but if
someone does have an authoritative opinion on that, it would be an
interesting idea. I have thought of a similar technology in the past,
but never was willing to put myself at risk for using it until I had a
definite legal opinion on the matter.
--Greg
I have a similar "Problem" with german bible translations. But most
translations are free for browsing and private usage. So there is no
legal way to provide sword packages. But why not provide scripts, which
allow every user to build up his own package?
Just downloading, some magic sed/awk to transform it to OSIS-XML and
import it into sword?
Is this a possible way? What do you think?

[Jonathon Blake]

But to provide a tool to build a module myself for my use only should

be ok, as/when private usage is allowed.

If anybody creates for The Sword Project, similar to The Bible Import
Tool for e-Sword, my advice is:
i) Create a list exclusively to support/discuss the tool;
ii) Ban all discussion/mention of it, on _all_ of the other Sword
Project Support Lists;

I'm making those two recommendations, because about once a quarter,
somebody on one of the e-Sword support lists will go off about The
Bible Import Tool. The resulting flames are not pleasant reading.

The legal arguments in favor of its use are:
i) Format shifting is legal;
ii) Time shifting is legal;
iii) The "Fair Use Doctrine" permits it;

The legal arguments against its use are:
i) It is a DCMA violation;
ii) "Fair Use"; does not apply;
iii) "Time Shifting" is irrelevant;
iv) "Format Shifting" is blatant copyright infringement;

I'll skip the theological arguments. [They tend to be even more divisive.]

****
Thus far, I have seen no similar legal, or theological debate about
the legitimacy of tools such as Biblos, for e-Sword.

The big difference between Bible Import Tool, and Biblos, is that the
former imports Bible from websites, whilst the latter imports from a
text file on one's system.

xan

jonathon

[DM Smith]

Post by Eicke Godehardt
I don't want to circumvent rights. That's why I'm not for sword
modules of copyrighted texts in any form. But to provide a tool to
build a module myself for my use only should be ok, as/when private
usage is alowed.

It is relatively trivial to create an input file to one of the Sword
module creation routines. The difficult part is getting the text into
one of the input forms. This is because output format of different
systems is, well, different.

Post by Eicke Godehardt
I'm even willing to pay for copyrighted sword modules, but there is no
one available.

Not yet at least :-)
I am waiting too!

Post by Eicke Godehardt
Do you think this is a wrong, dubios or questionable? I'm realy not
shure about that.

I'm not sure either. The problem I have is in providing a tool that
would be only valid for "personal" or "private" use and making that
publicly available. I am a bit leery about being held responsible for
how someone else behaves.

I would not have a problem in writing such a tool for myself that I can
use on a file that I have legally obtained and that I am allowed by the
license to that file to modify as I see fit. (I have some Palm bibles
that I have purchased that in the license agreement I am not allowed to
use other than with the provided software.) But I won't make that
software generally available. By the way, I don't have such a tool.

Post by Eicke Godehardt
Shalom,
.___ _ _
| __(_)__| |.___
| _|| / _| / -_)
|___|_\__|__\___\
God gave you your face - you have to smile yourself!

I work on BibleDesktop/JSword so that people can have free, high
quality software to use God's Word fully. I strongly support the
rights of individuals and corporations to their intellectual property
and copyrights. I am unwilling to provide people the tools to
circumvent these rights. I will "avoid the appearance of evil".
JSword plans to provide the ability to work with OSIS bibles
directly. At this time I have not found any OSIS bibles that we can
use. It is kind of hard to develop it with out a good example, so
this has not gone anywhere other than on the wish list.

Post by Greg Hellings
Technologically it should not be an overly difficult way, but I
would be wary of the way that this could be viewed by the copyright
holder and by the respective authorities. Seeing as how I'm neither
a lawyer nor an expert on "intellectual propery" laws, I don't know,
but if someone does have an authoritative opinion on that, it would
be an interesting idea. I have thought of a similar technology in
the past, but never was willing to put myself at risk for using it
until I had a definite legal opinion on the matter.
--Greg
I have a similar "Problem" with german bible translations. But most
translations are free for browsing and private usage. So there is no
legal way to provide sword packages. But why not provide scripts, which
allow every user to build up his own package?
Just downloading, some magic sed/awk to transform it to OSIS-XML and
import it into sword?
Is this a possible way? What do you think?

[DM Smith]

I have been an active member of this mailing list for almost 2 years.
During that time I have been impressed with how careful Chris, Troy and
others are to ensure that no copyrighted texts are available without
permission for Crosswire to distribute.

If you find a module that should not be on Crosswire, please let them know.

If you find a problem with the conf (the place where copyright and
permission can be found) please report it.

Post by Jonathon Blake

Post by Leon Brooks
providing illegal copies of copyright-restrcited translations.

Since you mention "copyright restricted translations", is there any
reason why a quarter or so of the texts that The Sword Project offers,
have no copyright information?
Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.

Please don't say things like this without a complete listing.

There are nearly 300 modules. 25% of that would be 75. There are 11
modules that do not explicitly claim to be Public Domain that do not
have copyright info outside of the About field. Of these 11, 4 do not
have clear explicit grants to Crosswire.


Below are my findings:

If you read the documentation for the module's conf the
DistributionLicense field defaults to "Public Domain" or can have one of
four values:
"Public Domain",
"Copyrighted; Free non-commercial distribution",
"Copyrighted; Permission to distribute granted to CrossWire",
"Copyrighted"
One might expect that one of the copyright fields to be present when it
is not Public Domain. While this is often the case, it is not required.
However, the About field is required and it usually contains the
copyright info, even when it is present in one of the copyright fields.
Here is a listing of all the modules that do not explicitly have "Public
Domain" for the DistributionLicense field, do not have a copyright field
and whether there is a clear copyright statement and more importantly a
statement as to whether Crosswire has permission to distribute.
ab Clear statement is in About
akjv Clear statement is in About
alt Clear statement is in About
bwe History is in the About.
Clearly it is recent and therefore copyrighted,
but there are no permission statements.
chiun Unclear statement in About
common Clear statement is in About
erxelmo_en Unclear statement in About
frecrl Non-English statement in About. Probably in French Haitian
Creole.
godsword Clear statement is in About
personal This is clearly an empty module where one can store personal
notes.
rwp Clear statement is in About

Post by Jonathon Blake
xan
jonathon

[Jonathon Blake]

Post by DM Smith

Post by Jonathon Blake
Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.

Please don't say things like this without a complete listing.

It doesn't matter how many, or how few modules there are.

_All_ of them should provide explicit copyright information, and not a
line of "This module was created from sources at this location.
Further copyright information is unknown".

xan

jonathon

[Troy A. Griffitts]

Jonathon,
Not to be harse here, but... Well, I guess I will be harse here. What
do you expect from our module repository? Whatever you answer here...
DO IT YOURSELF. This isn't a place to come and say, "you should know
everything and be perfect." We've done the best we can with the
supplied modules. If you have more information about a module we
supply, including specific information about a specific module that you
would like updated. Submit an updated .conf for the module here.
Thanks for contributing.

-Troy.

Post by Jonathon Blake

Post by DM Smith

Post by Jonathon Blake
Especially since at least several of them are _not_ public domain.

Please don't say things like this without a complete listing.

It doesn't matter how many, or how few modules there are.
_All_ of them should provide explicit copyright information, and not a
line of "This module was created from sources at this location.
Further copyright information is unknown".
xan
jonathon

[Jonathon Blake]

DO IT YOURSELF. This isn't a place to come and say, "you should know everything and be perfect." We've done the best we can with the supplied modules.

Earlier this month I was given a list of 200 modules for e-Sword that
allegedly are copyright infringements. When I get through that list,
I will contact the legitimate copyright holder of every module that
The Sword Project distributes, to verify that it can be distributed.

xan

jonathon

[Gabriel M. Beddingfield]

Post by Jonathon Blake
Earlier this month I was given a list of 200 modules for e-Sword that
allegedly are copyright infringements. When I get through that list,
I will contact the legitimate copyright holder of every module that
The Sword Project distributes, to verify that it can be distributed.

Would it be possible to share your list, so others can work on it in
parallel?

-Gabriel

[Jonathon Blake]

Would it be possible to share your list, so others can work on it in parallel?

That list is for e-Sword modules, _not_ Sword Project modules.

If you really want to spend time hunting down e-Sword modules, to
verify that they are currently publicly available, and then determine
who the copyright holder is, then verify that permission to distribute
the e-Sword module was granted, I can send you the list.

xan

jonathon

[DM Smith]

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[Brandon Staggs]

Post by Eicke Godehardt
I don't want to circumvent rights. That's why I'm not for sword modules
of copyrighted texts in any form. But to provide a tool to build a
module myself for my use only should be ok, as/when private usage is
alowed. I'm even willing to pay for copyrighted sword modules, but
there is no one available.
Do you think this is a wrong, dubios or questionable? I'm realy not
shure about that.

A tool that is specifically designed to scrape text from a
copyrighted, proprietary source probably violates the DMCA, and
anyone distributing it could be accused to inducing infringement.
The e-Sword import tool most definitely is designed to induce
infringement, because the copyrighted texts they are designed to
scrape are *not* licensed to be used in this manner. Every
modern Bible version license prohibits this kind of usage. There
is a reason why you have to pay to unlock the NIV in every Bible
program you own, rather than just one time -- because that's the
way they have licensed it, and it is definitely intentionally
thus.

One way to tick off licensors is to provide a means of
circumventing their license. It would be a bad idea to do it.

As for the arguments surrounding the legitimacy of copyrighting a
translation of the Bible, it's largely irrelevant unless someone
here is willing to go to court over it. Personally, I think it's
absurd to insist that a translation of a public domain text
constitutes a bona fide "creative work," and I think it's a
little bit ironic that someone attempting to create an accurate
translation would be willing to call their work a "creative act"
in order to hold ownership of it. If they were honest in their
advertising and called it a new creative work, they'd lose a lot
of business. Also, putting a large legal notice at the beginning
of a "Bible" warning people not to quote more than 500 verses
without written permission is laughable -- who owns it? God or
the publishers? Anyway, I digress -- until someone is willing
to go to court over this, it's a moot point.

-Brandon Staggs

[Greg Hellings]

While all of this discussion is very intirguing, it seems to be clear to
everyone now that the Sword developers want nothing to do with even a hint
of illegality that would surround creation of tools to import copyright
materials from other formats (a very sagacious position, in my view).
Therefore, is there any attemt to talk with copyright holders of texts like
the NIV, NRSV, and others to see if they would be willing for a Sword module
to be available. I would love the ability to get a copy of Sword modules for
texts such as those more modern translations - either from Crosswire or
directly from the copyright holders and would be more than happy to pay for
the fee that such texts would cost, regardless of my thelogical position on
charging for the Word of God. So what is the status of talking to the
copyright holders? Is there any progress or do they all reject the ideas out
of hand? Is there a way we could make the idea more intriguing to them (i.e.
offer to create a module in Sword format and give it to them for holding and
distribution, etc)? Because it really would be nice to have Sword modules of
modern translations available - either for hire or, through agreement, for
gratis.

--Greg
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[Tim Hawes]

Even better, why are we not backing the people who have provided us
public domain texts? Why don't we help fund to get versions like the
WEB, and RWebsters
into print (not just NT and Psalms). Then these versions could be more
easily used in environments that are prohibitive electronically (i.e. in
the sanctuaries of our churches, our prayer closets). I would much
rather try my hardest to reward those who have provided God's people
(and the Sword project) with gifts, than those who are still holding out
for profits by panhandling the Word of God.

Is there still a forum available to us for these off-topic discussions?
There used to be a newsgroup. Is that still being used? I would speek
more freely in such a forum.

Post by Greg Hellings
While all of this discussion is very intirguing, it seems to be clear
to everyone now that the Sword developers want nothing to do with even
a hint of illegality that would surround creation of tools to import
copyright materials from other formats (a very sagacious position, in
my view). Therefore, is there any attemt to talk with copyright
holders of texts like the NIV, NRSV, and others to see if they would
be willing for a Sword module to be available. I would love the
ability to get a copy of Sword modules for texts such as those more
modern translations - either from Crosswire or directly from the
copyright holders and would be more than happy to pay for the fee that
such texts would cost, regardless of my thelogical position on
charging for the Word of God. So what is the status of talking to the
copyright holders? Is there any progress or do they all reject the
ideas out of hand? Is there a way we could make the idea more
intriguing to them (i.e. offer to create a module in Sword format and
give it to them for holding and distribution, etc)? Because it really
would be nice to have Sword modules of modern translations available -
either for hire or, through agreement, for gratis.
--Greg
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page

[Daniel Glassey]

Post by Tim Hawes
Even better, why are we not backing the people who have provided us
public domain texts? Why don't we help fund to get versions like the
WEB, and RWebsters
into print (not just NT and Psalms). Then these versions could be more
easily used in environments that are prohibitive electronically (i.e. in
the sanctuaries of our churches, our prayer closets). I would much
rather try my hardest to reward those who have provided God's people
(and the Sword project) with gifts, than those who are still holding out
for profits by panhandling the Word of God.
Is there still a forum available to us for these off-topic discussions?
There used to be a newsgroup. Is that still being used? I would speek
more freely in such a forum.

Hi Tim
There are web forums at http://www.crosswire.org/forums
I hope these will do the job. I don't think the newsgroup is there any more.

Regards,
Daniel

[refdoc]

The DMCA is of complete irrelevance to anyone outside the United States
and should be treated with utter contempt. If Crosswire is hosted in the
States than this might be a matter we should rectify ASAP as the legal
restrictions of said country are a bit hard to bear.

Leaving this aside, the hosting of a copyright restricted module is
quite unfair and should not be done.

Peter

Post by Brandon Staggs

Post by Eicke Godehardt
I don't want to circumvent rights. That's why I'm not for sword modules
of copyrighted texts in any form. But to provide a tool to build a
module myself for my use only should be ok, as/when private usage is
alowed. I'm even willing to pay for copyrighted sword modules, but
there is no one available.
Do you think this is a wrong, dubios or questionable? I'm realy not
shure about that.

A tool that is specifically designed to scrape text from a
copyrighted, proprietary source probably violates the DMCA, and
anyone distributing it could be accused to inducing infringement.
The e-Sword import tool most definitely is designed to induce
infringement, because the copyrighted texts they are designed to
scrape are *not* licensed to be used in this manner. Every
modern Bible version license prohibits this kind of usage. There
is a reason why you have to pay to unlock the NIV in every Bible
program you own, rather than just one time -- because that's the
way they have licensed it, and it is definitely intentionally
thus.
One way to tick off licensors is to provide a means of
circumventing their license. It would be a bad idea to do it.
As for the arguments surrounding the legitimacy of copyrighting a
translation of the Bible, it's largely irrelevant unless someone
here is willing to go to court over it. Personally, I think it's
absurd to insist that a translation of a public domain text
constitutes a bona fide "creative work," and I think it's a
little bit ironic that someone attempting to create an accurate
translation would be willing to call their work a "creative act"
in order to hold ownership of it. If they were honest in their
advertising and called it a new creative work, they'd lose a lot
of business. Also, putting a large legal notice at the beginning
of a "Bible" warning people not to quote more than 500 verses
without written permission is laughable -- who owns it? God or
the publishers? Anyway, I digress -- until someone is willing
to go to court over this, it's a moot point.
-Brandon Staggs
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