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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/16/23 06:23, David Haslam wrote:<br>
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<div>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.</div>
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<p>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.<br>
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<p>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 <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-81-number-3/copyfraud/">copyfraud</a>.<br>
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<p><font color="#000000">Aloha,<br>
<b><big><i>Michael Johnson</i></big></b></font><b><br>
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