[sword-devel] http://karl.kleinpaste.org/sword/scripts/ do not work with arabic life application bible

[Chris Little]

John H. wrote:
> Not breaking the law.  As it has been made clear on this list, none of 
> you guys are lawyers, and as a lawyer myself, I am not quite sure where 
> the idea came from on here that if you download a bible it is any more 
> illegal than using miro for youtube, or cbs.com.  This has been a myth 
> that has been perpetuated over and over until it's been accepted as fact.

Your argument is that:
a) You are a lawyer.
b) Copyright is a matter of law.
c) You must be an expert in matters of copyright.
d) It follows that you must know more about copyright than I.

But unless you're a copyright lawyer or at the very least do a fair 
amount of study of the subject, point c is invalid and there is no basis 
for point d. But I would guess that you are not a copyright lawyer 
because you are mistaken on matters of copyright law.

The purpose of copyright is to permit a time-limited monopoly (generally 
to the creator of the content) on the creation of copies of the content. 
So, if I write a book, only I can print copies of that book (or license 
that right to others). If you get a copy of my book, you don't have a 
right to make copies (exclusive of limited fair-use rights).

Websites that offer Bibles for online reading do so under licenses from 
copyright holders (Lockman, UBS, Zondervan, etc.). Those licenses permit 
publication via the website itself, often with limits on how many verses 
may be displayed at a particular time. The intended and licensed context 
for the display of these materials is within a web browser.

What scraper scripts do is collect ALL of the data for a particular 
Bible and compile it into a single document for use outside of the 
browser. That constitutes a copy, made by you, in violation of the 
copyright holder's rights. It is also often in violation of websites' 
AUPs and certainly isn't how they intend their data to be used 
(precisely because the websites' licenses from the copyright holders do 
not permit them to distribute full copies for use outside of a browser).

The comparison to videos on miro, YouTube, & cbs.com isn't a 
particularly good one--partly because these are three extremely 
different services.

Miro is a bittorrent client wrapped in a pretty UI with syndication 
services. The content you can get with miro is often intended and 
licensed for download, but could as easily be unlicensed material. I 
don't think there's anything to prevent you from downloading and 
watching the new Indiana Jones via miro.

YouTube content isn't intended for viewing outside of youtube.com. They 
specifically state in their Terms of Use that "Accessing User Videos for 
any purpose or in any manner other than Streaming is expressly 
prohibited." So downloading and storing full videos isn't permitted. 
(And in lieu of a license to copy, copying non-public domain works, 
including videos posted to YouTube, is a copyright violation (excluding 
fair-use). Users who submit videos to YouTube retain their copyright 
(public domain works excepted).)

Videos on cbs.com are owned by CBS. They try to prevent you from 
downloading those videos (I'm not sure who successfully). You have no 
legal right to view them outside of the browser-embedded flash player. 
It's certainly a copyright violation if you do manage to download such 
videos.

Personal use does not equal fair use. This is just a myth that has been 
perpetuated over and over until it's been accepted as fact.

 > I would point out that the site also says specifically "That
 > particularly means no redistribution."

That is entirely irrelevant. If I rent a movie from Blockbuster or 
Netflix and copy the DVD, is it not a copyright violation if I don't 
redistribute the copy?

--Chris