[sword-devel] Zondervan are the good guys

[Mike Hart]

Please keep in mind that any potential publisher who may be checking into releasing texts via the Sword Project and/or Crosswire Bible Society may read these threads, as they are all archived semi-permanently on the crosswire site.  

I have a lot of respect for Zondervan.  If there is any greed involved in the "making money from copyrighted bibles" (and keep reading, I'm trying to point out there is not really a greed circle going on here,) then look at the entities that originally licensed their texts that way, not Zondervan. These guys (Zondervan) do make money, but also sow a lot of good.   

For example, the right to use the NIV for 'noncommercial use' in the US is still with the IBS and not with Zondervan.  Zondervan has the right (but not exclusive) to sell NIV bibles here, but other publishers have also licensed the NIV for sale in the US. (None of my NIV bibles say 'zondervan' on the spine.  Zondervan doesn't have the right to release the noncommercial use of NIV here in the US.  Zondervan has no commercial rights to license the NIV outside North America.  If you look at the copyright on biblegateway, it will confirm this. 

I also have a lot of respect for the IBS.  (Much more than for Zondervan.) They do a LOT of good worldwide and do go to great lengths to put bibles into the hands of those that need them the most.  They are behind Crosswire on the electronic edge of sowing the word, but if you go look at their site, they seem to be releasing more and more texts electronically all the time (on their site, in PDF format anyway.)  They aren't as open as I'd like to see, but moving in the right direction. Hopefully, Crosswire will get noticed by IBS someday and we'll get the rights to use a the NIV family of texts into crosswire.