[sword-devel] Here's Our Chance: Copyright Negotations

[Daniel Glassey]

On 18 Sep 2002 at 4:19, Jonathan Hughes sent forth the message:

> Hey Everyone,
> 
> 	I am encouraged by all of this conversation over what we should do.
> Here are some of my 2 cent thoughts. The thing that I think about is how
> much control do we want over the distributing of the texts. This all
> revolves around the economic aspects of distributing texts. If we host a
> payment site at crosswire.org then I believe we have more of a say in
> how much the modules will be sold for. We would be like a reseller.
> However if we simply made text available in formats that can be used
> with the SWORD Projects software and give those to the publishers and
> Bible societies then it will be simply be at their will, the price they
> charge. Is this a fight we want to be in is a good questions to ask? I
> would like to see translation modules that are afordable for anyone.
> Idealy it would be nice to have them completely free so that the largest
> amount of people can have them.

With commercial stuff only a small percentage of the payment (well under 50%) will go to the 
copyright owner (which in the end is generally fair because everyone has costs). If we, as 
volunteers, take 0% then that leaves 100% for them so they can afford to have it cheaper 
anyway.
I'm not sure that hosting the payment site would give us any more leverage except if other sites 
take a large % to process the payment.

> 	We have some of the South African translations already in our
> library...so the first step would be to simply use those and distribute
> them.

great :) I forgot about that kind of thing, makes it a lot easier to start.

> 	Does anyone have specific ideas of partnerships we can forge to get a
> central payment site setup, maybe something that we don't run but we are
> in partnership with and can provide a platform for payment that the
> Bible societies can use? (Daniel Glassey I did get your e-mail on a site
> that you had in mind) Thanks for any direction that you can bring.

Something to bear in mind is that given that this is the South African Bible Society - whatever 
payment method is used ought to be able to accept the S.A. Rand as well as the U.S. Dollar so 
that S.A. buyers won't have foreign exchange costs on top of the rest.

Regards,
Daniel

> On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 23:01, Daniel Blake wrote:
> > I agree. My intention with my next comment isn't to put anyone down, it is
> > merely to point out an observation.
> > 
> > I believe I have seen the Online Bible become more and more a commercial
> > bible software package than it was ever intended to be because of this very
> > thing.
> > I am not against having a way of including copyrighted materials I just
> > think it needs to not side track the purpose of the project.
> > 
> > 
> > Just my opinion.
> > Daniel Blake
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > I strongly recommend that we not get into the ordeal of handling money nor
> > > distributing texts for sale.  This is not a moral issue (at least I don't
> > want
> > > to go there again), but a shear matter of focus.  The Sword Project should
> > stick
> > > with software development.  We can offer to create a module that they can
> > > distribute or offer an encrypted module that others can pay them directly
> > to get
> > > the encryption code.  Other than that, I feel we are asking for trouble in
> > > getting into the rest.
> > >
> > > My 2 cents only!
> > >
> > > Dan
> > >
> > > Quoting Jonathan Hughes <jhughes@crosswire.org>:
> > >
> > > > Hey Everyone,
> > > >
> > > > So I have been skimming through the copyright and locked module related
> > > > e-mails that have been flying around this mailing list. Well here is our
> > > > chance to help a Bible society out and also have their translations
> > >
> > > > available for people to download. The Bible Society of South Africa has
> > > > expressed that they would be willing for us to distribute their
> > > > translations for a small fee (they say $10, I would like to see it
> > > > closer to $5). So how are we going to do this? I am looking for ideas
> > > > from anyone but particularly those that will have to do some work to
> > > > implement things (Troy and Chris). I would like to have something to
> > > > propose to them in the next couple of days. Thanks so much.
> > > >
> > > > In Christ,
> > > > Jonathan Hughes
> > > > -----------------------------------------------
> > > > Copyright Coordinator
> > > > E-mail: jhughes@crosswire.org
> > > > Web: http://www.crosswire.org/sword/copyright/
> > > > -----------------------------------------------