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roseb
Guest
Are prayers such as common prayers like the Act of Contrition and others such as novenas copyrighted?
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M
MarcusAndreas
Guest
No.
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Elizium23
Guest
I beg to differ. If some prayers and translations thereof are very old and have fallen into the public domain, they are not copyrighted. But if a prayer is published in a book or in a website, you can safely assume that it is still in copyright and you need permission to reproduce it.
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LIT56RD
Guest
So now we even need permission to pray.
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Elizium23
Guest
I did not say that you need permission to recite or use the prayers personally. In the civilized world, authors retain the right to limit reproduction of their work so as to earn an honest living. This includes authors and publishing houses who publish prayers. The customs of the Internet and individuals who violate this notwithstanding, it is required to obtain permission before Xeroxing off a hundred copies of, say, the Liturgy of the Hours for public use.
Take a look at the Wikipedia article for Act of Contrition and you will see a number of variations that are ostensibly no longer under copyright. These prayers are OK to use (generally, if something appears in Wikipedia, it is either contributed by the author and falls under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, or it was in the public domain, i.e. The Catholic Encyclopedia, and incorporated into Wikipedia legally.)
This often trips up choir directors in churches. In order for the choir and assembly to sing songs effectively, they must reproduce copies of the lyrics and/or music. In order to do this legally and so avoid being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, they must obtain permission first. Oftentimes this permission is easy to get, from one publishing house or online through a form submission, and this small effort is enough to avoid a huge liability.
Take a look at the Wikipedia article for Act of Contrition and you will see a number of variations that are ostensibly no longer under copyright. These prayers are OK to use (generally, if something appears in Wikipedia, it is either contributed by the author and falls under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, or it was in the public domain, i.e. The Catholic Encyclopedia, and incorporated into Wikipedia legally.)
This often trips up choir directors in churches. In order for the choir and assembly to sing songs effectively, they must reproduce copies of the lyrics and/or music. In order to do this legally and so avoid being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, they must obtain permission first. Oftentimes this permission is easy to get, from one publishing house or online through a form submission, and this small effort is enough to avoid a huge liability.
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