[sword-devel] Copyrights and derivative works

[Matthew Donadio]

Joel Mawhorter wrote:
> > I'm not sure if this clears things up, but if you read the NIV copyright
> > page, they specificially state that commentaries and reference works
> > based on the NIV for commercial purposes require written premission from
> > the publisher.
> 
> Where did you see this? In my printed copy of the NIV I don't have anything to
> that effect.

Both of the NIV copies I have (Study Bible and Thinline) have it on the
copyright page.

> Even if I did it wouldn't really clear things up. Companies can claim all
> sorts of rights that they have no legal basis to claim. For instance I could
> print and book and put on the copyright page that permission was required to
> write a review of the book. However my guess is that fair use laws would
> override that.

You could be right in that case.

In the case of the concordance, it may be more an issue of a trademark
problem.  NIV and New International Version are both registered
trademarks.  If you produce an independent NIV concordance, and sell it
as Joel's NIV Concordance, then you are using someone else's trademark
to make money.  If you produce a free concordance, then I think they
would also have a claim because your use of their mark is denying them
sales for the similar items that they already produce.

-- 
Matthew Donadio (m.p.donadio@ieee.org)