Christianity and Copyright

Open English Translation

Submitted by nathan on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 14:59
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I was recently made aware of the Open English Translation project. It is an endeavor to create a new English translation (actually, multiple translations in various forms) using openly documented formats and copy-friendly licenses. That is just another way of saying that it is right up my alley.

In addition to the translation project, Rob Hunt is seeking to shake up a few aspects of customary Bible publishing practice, including chapters and verses, chapter headings, terminology (e.g. Old and New Testament), and order of books. Rob has also chosen an interesting rubric for textual criticism:

Segments which are not included in the most ancient manuscripts will be removed from the inline text.

Well, this is not exactly up my alley, but that's OK.

I encourage anyone who is so inclined to lend a hand where needed to this project. This is exactly what Bible publishing needs, in my opinion. As I have written before, there are practical and ethical problems with publishing translations under restrictive licenses. The OET project is a concrete step in the right direction.

The benefits of free data

Submitted by nathan on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 14:00
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Efraim Feinstein's post "An Economic Argument for Free Primary Data" is definitely worth the read. He argues that freely licensed data best serves a community's needs because it reduces duplication of effort and therefore conserves resources. It is certainly true that many works have been digitized into proprietary formats many different times. This is similar to my argument about the practical problem of Christianity and Copyright: that copy restrictions make data less useful in the digital age. A discussion of this post on the Open Scriptures mailing list generated an interesting exchange questioning the applicability of "do not muzzle the ox" to copyright royalties. I've written on that issue in brief before, but I may flesh out my views on that in a longer post soon.

Inaccessible Scholarship

Submitted by nathan on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 23:12
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A while back Mike Aubrey brought up the plight of Buist Fanning's Verbal Aspect of New Testament Greek: It is $240 per copy. That effectively makes it out of reach for everyone but libraries and the richest scholars. The reason it is so expensive is because it is published only as hardback and printed only on-demand. Aubrey has initiated a letter-writing campaign to get the work published in a more affordable form (paperback, or perhaps electronic). This is, of course, a laudible goal, because this work is very important for New Testament scholarship. I would take it a step further, though. It seems that Fanning is not at liberty to take his work to another publisher (I am sure many presses would be quite interested in his book). The reason for this is apparently the licensing terms which Oxford University places on its doctoral candidates' dissertations and monographs. I think this stands as an important warning for Christian scholars: If you want your work to be beneficial to others, you need to be careful about licensing terms.

Expensive Scholarly Works

Submitted by nathan on Wed, 04/22/2009 - 09:42
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Many published works of Christian scholarship are incredibly expensive to purchase. That and being in dead-tree form makes the data less useful to those whom it is intended to benefit. Ulrich Schmid expresses frustration:

Concerning the pricing of scholarly literature in Biblical studies it is time that scholars themselves start to think about their roles as content providers. It's not just that the books are so expensive, but all the work that goes into publishing such literature is basically done by the scholars as well. Sky-high prizing despite having the manuscripts delivered camera-ready is a situation that I am increasingly fed up with. What do other content providers think about that?

Maurice Robinson seems to have the same sentiment I do:

I seriously wonder what all the publishers of those ridiculously expensive limited-print volumes would do if the various scholarly writers (who often get little or no payment or royalty for such works) would eschew such costly publication formats, and get together to offer at a common website free PDF downloads of their camera-ready scholarly works. That way -- bypassing the print media entirely -- a wider audience could be had, even offering the material in printed hardback or paperback format through the various low-cost on-demand publishing entities such as Lulu or Lightning Source. Something to think about, certainly.

I would go farther than Robinson. I think the source files of the work should be distributed as well, since this makes the scholarship easier to convert for various uses. Also, I would ensure that the works are libre and not just gratis.

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