[sword-devel] Copyright Scripture distribution

[Joel Mawhorter]

On Sat, 04 Dec 1999, you wrote:
> Den lør, 04 dec 1999 07:27:45 Paul Gear skrev:
> > Jerry Hastings wrote:
> > 
> > > At 08:23 PM 12/3/1999 -0800, Joel Mawhorter wrote:
> > > >Since the issue of Copyrighted texts is being discussed on this
> > > >list, I thought I would give some info. on my experiences.
> > >
> > > Thanks for posting that, Joel. It was very interesting.
> > 
> > Scary is my word for it - a Bible society reluctant to give out Bibles?
> 
> I think it's very disturbing that a bible society wants to use copyright as
>a way to enforce censorship. If that's the way their mind works it's probably a
>waste of time to talk to them, it's better to throw your energy into improving
>WEB and similar projects.

Yes, I agree. WEB, NET and other such projects are great!  However, I know of
no such projects that are producing Bibles in Arabic, Chinise, Russian, and
other languages. This is why I'm trying to get access to some of these texts.
The bigest need for Bibles is not for English versions. Most of the people in
the world who have no hope of ever being able to buy a Bible are in non-English
speaking countries.

What most mystifies me about the IBS stance on electronic Scripture
distribution is that they are not trying to protect their own profits. That I
could understand.  If they are allowing free downloads of the texts from their
site, how does it hurt them if I redistribute those texts for free?

> Med venlig hilsen/Best regards
> Birger Langkjer
> http://members.xoom.com/langkjer