New American Bible and Catechism copyright-protected?

[Caitlin]

I have a somewhat odd question. Is The New American Bible and The Catechism of the Catholic Church copyright protected?

 

[humilityseeker]

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Printed source CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH - Latin text copyright (c) Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Citta del Vaticano 1993
Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
2003 11 04

New American Bible
Printed source United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 [(202) 541-3000](tel202) 541-3000)
November 11, 2002 Copyright (c) by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

 

[Beryllos]

Were you wondering why?

 

[Anesti33]

This is a tragedy and a crying shame. Copyright restriction is downright uncatholic. The Catholic Church has always been an open-source religion. Long have I advocated for a shift to Creative Commons licensing for Church documents. If only a few bishop ordinaries would get the idea for their own sees. Oh well, a man can dream, yes?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Copyright restriction is downright uncatholic.

Not really. One of the earliest incidents of a copyright dispute involves Catholic monks.

The story of St. Columba: A modern copyright battle in sixth century Ireland

I've long been under the impression that copyright began with the Statute of Anne in 1710, as is generally taught. But have you ever heard of Saint Columba (521-597)? If not, the story is going to sound pretty familiar compared to modern copyright battles. But fortunately, mp3 downloads rarely...

opensource.com

Also, the Church makes the NABRE and the Catechism free to read on the Internet on the Vatican website and allows other websites (USCCB, St. Charles Borromeo Church etc) to post them as well. It seems pretty clear that the Church isn’t going to go after organizations that post its works in good faith (another parish church has the copyrighted Manual of Indulgences posted online for free for years now).

It’s understandable why the Church maintains copyright; otherwise, some Protestant or anti-Catholic website would probably be misusing the Catholic texts to mislead the faithful or bash Catholicism. The Church would no doubt take action against any organization that it felt was misusing its copyrighted works.

 

[Anesti33]

Also, the Church makes the NABRE and the Catechism free to read on the Internet on the Vatican website and allows other websites (USCCB, St. Charles Borromeo Church etc) to post them as well. It seems pretty clear that the Church isn’t going to go after organizations that post its works in good faith (another parish church has the copyrighted Manual of Indulgences posted online for free for years now).

First of all, “free to read on the Internet” means absolutely nothing. Lots of copyrighted stuff is “free to read”. This is not a free license and you will always see “(c) All Rights Reserved” at the bottom.

And actually the Church has gone after someone; in at least one case I know of, a man converted an encyclical or something to multiple free eBook formats and he was ordered to cease and desist. Copyright allows the Church (and everybody else) to lock up documents in non-free unfriendly formats and then go after good-faith “pirates” like this.

The Catechism, the NABRE, and such are locked up in a shoddy HTML version that is really inferior to the printed book. It could really be improved if others had the right to remix.

The reason those other orgs have posted the materials is because they are licensed! A more open license is exactly what I am talking about. But each of those orgs had to individually negotiate for license terms, rather than the Church granting them freely.

It’s understandable why the Church maintains copyright; otherwise, some Protestant or anti-Catholic website would probably be misusing the Catholic texts to mislead the faithful or bash Catholicism. The Church would no doubt take action against any organization that it felt was misusing its copyrighted works.

I completely fail to see how copyright law helps the Church prosecute anti-Catholicism. Can you give a real-world example.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m not encouraged to discuss this further by your response, so I think I’ll leave it at what I have said. Perhaps others will discuss further with you.
By the way, I am well aware of copyright law and how it works on the Internet.

 

[RhodesianSon]

Those men deserve pay for their work, and need funds to pay for materials to publish.

 

[Anesti33]

Well that’s fine if you don’t see the value in sharing information, collaboration, and the common good.

“Encyclicals” are called thus because they are shared among all bishops. Imagine a copyrighted encyclical that was not licensed to them!

Those men deserve pay for their work, and need funds to pay for materials to publish.

Yes, I agree. Creative Commons in no way prohibits creators from profiting from their works. Optionally, the creator can specify “non-commercial reuse only” though.

 

[BartholomewB]

One obvous answer is that publishing companies don’t generally publish uncopyrighted works, because it isn’t in their interest. The Church wants Catholic Bibles to be available in bookstores in editions that are professionally produced, proof-read, printed, and bound. That means doing a deal with reliable publishers.

 

[Anesti33]

One obvous answer is that publishing companies don’t generally publish uncopyrighted works, because it isn’t in their interest. The Church wants Catholic Bibles to be available in bookstores in editions that are professionally produced, proof-read, printed, and bound. That means doing a deal with reliable publishers.

Creative Commons licensing is not “uncopyrighted”. Creative Commons creators retain full copyright status; CC is a family of licenses. One option is “Public Domain” but not all CC is public domain.

Licenses specify what a consumer can do with a copyrighted work. If no license is specified, use is obviously limited to “fair use” and personal use. Licensing happens all the time for fully-copyrighted works, it’s just that most of those are granted to specific organizations for specific reasons and uses. Creative Commons is broader than that.

 

[Anesti33]

It seems pretty clear that the Church isn’t going to go after organizations that post its works in good faith (another parish church has the copyrighted Manual of Indulgences posted online for free for years now).

Let’s take the example of OCP, music publisher extraordinare. They prosecute copyright infringement constantly and aggressively, against churches and communities who photocopy or publicly perform their works without license permission. Permission is very expensive, and so licensing from the likes of OCP is prohibitive for churches with tight budgets. So many just think they can skate by with photocopies and it’s not really a sin, right? Hahaha.