[sword-devel] John Gill

[Chris Little]

We shouldn't necessarily jump on Larry's case over his placing a copyright
notice on the Gill Expositor.  He didn't merely type it in, but also did
some corrections and markup for Online Bible presentation.  Still it's not
enough to copyright according to the US copyright office.  But Larry may
have placed the copyright notice in there to scare off people intending to
sell the work he'd typed in (well, he along with volunteers) as part of
other Bible packages. While not at all legal or defensible, it's better
than actually thinking he owns the work outright.  I'll drop him a line
when I get back home and ask if he'll allow us to use Gill for SWORD.
Maybe he'd be interested in a trade or something.  On the bright side, he
does allow free download of the Gill module in OLB format from TOLBSS
(www.ccel.org/olb).

Kevin Knight of New Advent has a similar copyright on the Catholic
Encyclopedia because he and volunteers typed it in but he hasn't responded
to any emails I've sent him.  And Sulu Kelley is doing the same for the
Wesley notes and others, of course he is actually selling and trying to
make profit from the notes upon which he claims copyright.

Of course if you want to see some serious avarice, you have to look no
further than Logos.  They like to charge $20 a pop for free translations
like KJV, ASV, Darby, Louis Segond, YLT, etc.  Even ISV, which they are
legally forbidden from selling, they charge $20 for because they only way
to get it is through buying a CD-ROM (nice circumvention of the ISV
license there guys).  The only books they give out for free are the BDB
lexicon and a Christmas Carol (which is oh-so usefull in Bible study).
Good thing Logos is diversifying away from strictly Christian works.

Sorry to rant.  I've just been a little annoyed for the last couple
years at people who twist the US Constitution and copyright law to their
own ends and who will hinder the spread of God's word or its elucidation
if they aren't making a buck from it.

-Chris Little