Copyright on religious works

With copyright on religious works it is not always clear who the rights' holder is. Under the provisions of the Berne Convention, copyright is granted to the author on creation of the work. Several religions claim that all or some of their works were authored (written or dictated) by their god or gods.

Many Christians, for instance, believe that the Bible is literally the word of God.^{[citation needed]} Many editions of the Bible are under copyright due to their unique edition or translation.

The founder of Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith, claimed that an age old Book of Mormon contains the religious and secular history of ancient civilizations in the Americas.

In 1991 the Urantia Foundation held a copyright to The Urantia Book. They sued Kristen Maaherra for reproducing parts of the book unauthorized. According to the Foundation's representatives, the Papers of The Urantia Book were dictated by celestial, unseen cosmic beings to an unidentified sleeping subject (a human being) and they, The Urantia Foundation held the copyright in trust of keeping the text "inviolate".

In resolving Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra, the court said that "We agree with [the defendant], however, that it is not creations of divine beings that the copyright laws were intended to protect, and that in this case some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the Book to be copyrightable. At the very least, for a worldly entity to be guilty of copyright infringement, that entity must have copied something created by another worldly entity."

Maaherra lost the case at this level, on the argument that the members of the receiving group had been given an original direction to the writings by selecting and formulating their questions, thus fulfilling the obligation of creative effort required to gain a copyright under U.S. law. This was later overturned on the grounds that the Urantia Foundation was not the author, and that the sleeping subject, sometimes highly controversially called a channeler, was legally considered the author, and that the Urantia Foundation thus could not file a valid copyright renewal.

A similar case arose when the copyright owners of A Course in Miracles sued New Christian Church of Full Endeavor for distributing A Course in Miracles. The court ruled that the copyright on the manuscripts was violated, and wrote, quoting from the above case:

"In a case similar to this one, the Ninth Circuit recently held that, notwithstanding a spiritual book's "celestial" or "divine" origins, the originality requirement necessary for a valid copyright was satisfied because the human beings who "compiled, selected, coordinated, and arranged" the book did so "'in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.'" Urantia Found. v. Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958 (9th Cir. 1997) ("Urantia") (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 101)."

However, in the final judgement, copyright on the published text was not upheld, because it was published without a proper copyright notice, which was required under US law at the time.

In the United Kingdom, the King James Version of the Bible is covered by a crown copyright.

Copyright law can clash with the evangelization work of a church. Probably the best known instance of this is the case of the secret religious writings of the Church of Scientology. Since late 1994, Scientology has used various legal tactics to stop the distribution of these documents written by its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The church claims these documents may only be read by followers who have reached a state of so-called "clear," although critics hint that the enormous sums of money followers must pay to be able to read these documents could provide another reason as to why the church is so secretive.

Freedom of religion

The commercial rights granted by copyright law do not infringe on freedom of religion. They grant an entity, either the author or a publisher, a right to derive commercial benefit from a text, and some countries grant the author additional rights to control the integrity of the text. They do not control what some other individual believes about that text, nor forbid access to that text.

On the other hand, copyright laws can be used as leverage by the owner, and if that owner is a religious organization, they will naturally attempt to control their assets. This can lead to problems, as seen above, if a dissenter also wants to promulgate their own vision of the text.

However, despite the creep up of copyright terms, all copyrights are finite in duration. This means that eventually all texts will become public domain somewhere. So at that point anyone will be able to do what they wish with that text.

The original text of ancient books, such as the Bible, Rig Veda, etc. predate any copyright laws. However, translations of that text may be recent enough to fall under copyright law, and commentary or cross-notes added to the text may be copyrighted. Of course that copyright will belong to the person, persons, or organization that translated or added material to the text, not God (or any particular god or gods).

Another issue is which version of the text one might want to use. For instance, there are numerous variations in the text of the Bible, as the canonical text has been preserved through a set of manuscripts, each with minor variations. This means that any critical edition of the Bible will reflect a huge number of decisions on the part of the editor, which rises to the level of 'creativity' which copyright law demands.

In most countries, fair use is intended to permit sufficient quotation from the original work as needed for commentary or criticism.

See also

• Church of Spiritual Technology and Religious Technology Center, owner of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard intellectual property
• Intellectual Reserve, owner of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' intellectual property
• A Course in Miracles

References

• The preliminary judgement on A Course in Miracles ruling (PDF document) that religious freedom and nonearthly authorship did not void the copyright
• Final ruling on A Course in Miracles ruling (PDF document) that the copyright was lost for other reasons
• U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra finding for the Foundation
• Documents from the final court case that voided the Urantia copyright