[sword-devel] Correction for KJV module in 2 Corinthians 1:8

[Michael Johnson]

On 1/16/23 06:23, David Haslam wrote:
>
> And yes - it remains the case that the text of the KJV is protected by Royal Letters Patent within the United Kingdom, and that in principle, this copyright assertion should be upheld by subsequent mutual treaties in those nations that were signatories of the Berne Convention.

A minor correction with major implications: The KJV and Book of Common Prayer Letters Patent are NOT a copyright with respect to the Berne Convention. Those have no legal effect outside of the UK. Full stop. BS/BFBS opinions notwithstanding. The latter organization, and especially certain persons within them, have already proven that it is willing to stretch copyright law to the extent of committing copyfraud, so I don't trust their opinions. Case in point: the Beaver Scriptures. One could also argue that 
King James said nothing about digital copies, but only printing, which is not necessarily a lame point. All REAL copyrights expire. The term may exceed a lifetime, but they do expire.

In the unlikely event that I wanted to print KJV Bibles and import them into England or Wales, or if I wanted to print them within those countries, I would care about the very old Letters Patent about that. In no other case do they affect me or my Bible distribution decisions. There is no evidence of anyone trying to enforce those Letters Patent outside of England and Wales, except perhaps in other parts of the UK, let alone succeeding. I have, however, had a two Bible Societies challenge some texts I have 
online. In one case, I produced written permission to share the text. In the other, I produced evidence that the work was permanently and irrevocably in the Public Domain. I'm very careful about copyright law, and fully aware of its extreme complexity in an international context. I'm also not intimidated by copyfraud <https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-81-number-3/copyfraud/>.

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