Thursday, December 23, 2004
Scriptural copyright
So I was reading in last week's edition of the LDS Church News an article about the new edition of the Book of Mormon being published by Doubleday. The article focused on Doubleday's decision to publish a mass market edition, and specifically the church's original reticence to allow them to do it. Eventually, the story goes, the church became convinced that this could be a good thing, so they went forward with the project, and now you have it.
My question is: Why did Doubleday need the Church's permission? The Book of Mormon was first published in 1830, and its copyright expired long ago. It's in the public domain, free for anyone to copy and publish. Of course, the footnotes and edits that came with the 1985(?) edition that we all use for scriptures are still under copyright, but the Doubleday edition (rightly so, I think) doesn't include those annotations.
Shelly and I received as a wedding gift a big fat "Family Edition" Book of Mormon in a leather cover with gold-trimmed pages and lotsa Greg Olsen-style paintings. It's supposed to the the LDS equivalent of the family Bible, and it even has places in the first few pages to record births, baptisms, ordinations, etc. of all the family members. None of the 1985 annotations are included. It's possible and legal because the Book of Mormon is in the public domain.
I can see why Doubleday might want the church's blessing (after all, if the church gets behind the project, as they have done, Doubleday's sales are going to increase dramatically as Mormons buy their edition simply because it's new and different and the church supports it). But they didn't need the church's blessing. Why are we acting like they did?
My question is: Why did Doubleday need the Church's permission? The Book of Mormon was first published in 1830, and its copyright expired long ago. It's in the public domain, free for anyone to copy and publish. Of course, the footnotes and edits that came with the 1985(?) edition that we all use for scriptures are still under copyright, but the Doubleday edition (rightly so, I think) doesn't include those annotations.
Shelly and I received as a wedding gift a big fat "Family Edition" Book of Mormon in a leather cover with gold-trimmed pages and lotsa Greg Olsen-style paintings. It's supposed to the the LDS equivalent of the family Bible, and it even has places in the first few pages to record births, baptisms, ordinations, etc. of all the family members. None of the 1985 annotations are included. It's possible and legal because the Book of Mormon is in the public domain.
I can see why Doubleday might want the church's blessing (after all, if the church gets behind the project, as they have done, Doubleday's sales are going to increase dramatically as Mormons buy their edition simply because it's new and different and the church supports it). But they didn't need the church's blessing. Why are we acting like they did?
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