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

[Daniel Adams - InfoChi]

Besides, the Testing that is done by a few, myself included helps to make sure 
the modules that are distributed are indeed GOOD. If we were to have many 
people modifying them, then they might have many modules by the same name that 
are different

By the grace of God,
Dan Adams


Quoting Chris Little <chrislit@crosswire.org>:

> On Wed, 18 Sep 2002, Don A. Elbourne Jr. wrote:
> 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Matthew Donadio" <m.p.donadio@ieee.org>
> > > Could we allow users to purchase one of these formats, and make it easy
> > > for them to convert the text into Sword Modules?
> > 
> > 
> > We could, but it is against the law. Unfortunately, it is a breach of
> > copyright to convert digital material in that way.
> 
> Quit taking everything certain people on certain other mailing lists say
> as the gospel truth.  :)  He was plainly wrong about a few things in that
> discussion about copyright and had not the basis to make claims about most
> of the others.
> 
> We can make converters, provided it doesn't require circumventing 
> protection measures in software.  Unfortunately, "protection measures" can 
> be pretty widely interpreted--e.g. the don't-embed bit of TT fonts or the 
> don't-allow-printing/copying bit in PDFs.  I hope that courts get a clue 
> about this not being a protection measure.  But my point is, if a program 
> had an export mechanism, users can use that and we can provide import 
> mechanisms to Sword.  Perfectly legal.
> 
> The problem, and the reason we don't do this much, is that it's just a 
> pain to convert modules like this.  Users wouldn't typically bother.  And 
> it would convey to publishers that some other Bible software is more 
> popular than it actually is if we drove sales for it, when we should look 
> to promote Sword's viability as a Bible publishing platform so that other 
> publishers consider releasing material for it.  Those few translations 
> available for other readers are a nice start, but I don't see anyone else 
> giving out or selling Tswana Bibles, as I would like to someday.
> 
> The other problem, of course, is that it makes enemies out of lots of 
> other Bible software publishers, who we don't really need to antagonize.
> 
> WRT the ALT-- we actually have permission to distribute this, I just 
> haven't had time to remake the module.  I figure it's due for an update 
> rather than just being unlocked.
> 
> --Chris
> 




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