Copyright

Open access scientific journal PLOS ONE made a big boo-boo. They published a paper that attributed the design of the human hand to the "Creator." Hell hath no fury to equal biologists finding the word 'Creator'. After receiving complaints, PLOS ONE's editors responded:

A number of readers have concerns about sentences in the article that make references to a ‘Creator’. The PLOS ONE editors apologize that this language was not addressed internally or by the Academic Editor during the evaluation of the manuscript. We are looking into the concerns raised about the article with priority and will take steps to correct the published record.

It's plagiarism when a scientist fails to attribute the design of the object of his study to God, but now we know why he never does so. Among Scientism's priesthood, giving proper attribution to God is the most serious heresy and will not pass unpunished. Someone should take them to court for their...

If technology is behind many evils, although I wouldn't put it at the top of the list, the aggressive lobbying of publishers for expansion of their copyrights would be way up there. You know a recurrent theme here is the click we all are forced to perform before new software installations and updates: "Yes, I've read and agree with your 10,000 words of legalese here binding me to give notice to Apple if I ever put on a pair of socks again without explicit permission from Apple's in-house socks permissions department. And no, I will never, ever eat an apple again without paying you a user fee. Promise and cross my heart." You know the routines and the lies it's made pervasive.

But this is almost the least toxic part of the abuse of copyright, today. We have Christians threatening lawsuits against those who copy works in the public domain when those works are not and cannot be covered by copyright, so their threat is a lie. We have Bibles copyrighted when the Holy Spirit inspired every word, and Moses, Kings David and Solomon, and the Apostle Paul did the work and have been dead for many centuries. We have Mickey Mouse getting an extension of royalties for Disney simply because he has well-paid lawyers and lobbyists buying legislators who think making the Disney corporation filthy richer is fine because Disney is next to apple pie and motherhood.

It's a mess and we all need to remind ourselves that there's another way for believers...

(DB) In the 1980s I couldn't take John MacArthur. Every time his voice came on WMBI in Chicago, I turned it off. My mother would say to me that he was a better man than I thought. I didn't care. Something snide and self-assured seemed to emanate from from the radio when he was preaching.

And then in 1985-86, I spent a year in Fullerton, CA, as a pastoral intern under Paul Sailhamer at the Fullerton Evangelical Free Church while Chuck Swindoll was senior pastor there. As part of the year, Paul took the two interns to visit significant California churches. We did a trip to San Diego (on which Chuck accompanied us) and a northern trip to the Bay area.

We also went to visit Grace Community Church, where Paul, Dave Butler and I had breakfast with John MacArthur. 

During breakfast I asked John if he was willing to preach on abortion. I had a private interest in the question: I had been trying to convince friends at Fullerton that Chuck should preach on abortion, something he hadn't yet done (he did the following year). Fullerton was willing to have then-surgeon-general C. Everett Koop preach on abortion, but not Chuck. So I secretly scored a point when John answered emphatically, "Yes, I'm willing. I've already preached two series on it."

Did you notice Google's protest today, shown to the right? I can't remember another time we've done this on Baylyblog but rich corporations' abuse of copyright has to stop. Join millions of others in registering your opposition to Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA).

The corporate authors of this legislation are demanding the ability to take down any web site (including Craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits without prior judicial oversight or due process. You'll notice sites such as Wikipedia and Craigslist have joined Google in protest.

Register your opposition now. Stop this money grab by the likes of News Corp, TimeWarner, Comcast, Ralph Lauren, ABC, Juicy Couture, Chanel, Sony, Rolex, RIAA, and Nike.

And if you think SOPA solves a real problem, read this and this.

Odd allies of the protest include Nancy Pelosi and Ron Paul. The ACLU is right on this one.

(TB)

(Tim, w/thanks to Andrew) Working for its employer, Biblica, the Committee on Bible Translation has just announced a new line of merchandise labelled the New International Version 2010. Aimed at postmoderns who are quite sensitive to the charges of sexism and anti-Semitism made against Scripture, News Corp's Zondervan has purchased exclusive rights to what is likely to be a highly profitable product line. (The latest year for which stats are available, Zondervan paid Biblica $6,000,000 in royalties.)

David and I have long opposed changing Scripture to make it less offensive. Where does it end? If we're going to avoid offending feminists, what about post-Holocaust Jews? And if we're going to avoid offending feminists and Jews, what about the slaves? And if we're going to avoid offending feminists and Jews and the slaves, what about the gay community? What about all of us who hate repentance--can't they tweak things so repentance isnt' so prominent?

Where does it end?

But really, if we're going to sell Scripture short, let's skip all the secondary offenses and go straight to...

(This post was quite different, originally, and I've changed it to

errors.)

(Tim) Evangelical publishers would do well to offer free digital MP3 files of their Bibles to facilitate memorization. Free MP3s of the KJV are widely available, while other Bible publishers are earning good royalties off these audio files that cost little to nothing to serve on the web, nor do they need to be printed or shipped. The NASB95 is about

the least expensive of contemporary versions at $20-30 for the

entire Bible in MP3...

(Tim) The latest New Yorker has an article by Ken Auletta chronicling the death throes of bookstores and traditional book publishers. People are still buying books, but there's a hostile takeover of these legacy hard copy businesses being waged by authors and their strong allies: particularly the explosion of e-books and the pricing structure and self-publishing services of a number of companies; most especially, Amazon. 

It's been a long time coming and nothing but good that authors are regaining some authority over the marketing and distribution of their work.

Take, for instance, self-publishing. In the old days, traditional book publishers cultivated the notion that anything worth publishing would be recognized and put under contract by a reputable publisher. If you weren't able to interest the big name publishers and went the vanity press route, it was because you were vain and wouldn't listen to the simple truth acquisitions editors kindly sent you by letter--that your book had no market. So hardheaded authors who wouldn't take "no" for an answer went off to a vanity press and paid, rather than being paid, for their book to be published. They spent money out of their own pockets to purchase a few hundred copies they could pawn off on business associates or family members.

But no serious man with serious credentials and serious things to say would be caught dead going that route. That's what was meant when you heard the suits say "he went with a vanity press."

Of course those who live in the publishing world know how fallible acquisitions editors and publishers are. John Grisham had his first mystery turned down by twelve publishers and sixteen agents before he found someone willing to take him into print...

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1)

(Tim) Under "Save your church money...," David Ker, a Bible translator and blogger of Mozambique, commented on the lockdown the Portuguese and Brazilian Bible Societies have put in place denying Portuguese Christians access to Portuguese digital versions of God's Word.

In a blog post titled, "Illegal sources of the Portuguese Bible in digital format," he writes:

While every other major world language has multiple versions of the

Bible represented online, Portuguese has not one. To paraphrase

Emerson, make the Bible illegal and we all become criminals*.

The spirits of John Wycliff and Brother Andrew

hover over this shameful situation compelling us to act. If the enemy

forces were a state religion like the Church of England or an

oppressive government like China or Iran we would think nothing of

risking our lives to bring the Bible to those who can’t access it

otherwise. But in this case because the bad guys have the words “Bible

Society” in their name we’re supposed to sit on our thumbs...

(Tim, w/thanks to James) David and I've long argued that the Bible ought not to be copyrighted by anyone except to guarantee the text's accuracy. The Word of God's Author is the Holy Spirit--not the International Bible Society, Tyndale House Publishers, the Lockman Foundation, Zondervan, or Crossway. But of course, Bibles are the cash-cows of Christian publishing and no one's withdrawing their copyright of the Bible, putting its text into the public domain.

But beyond the text of God's Word, we have other Christian publishers denying the works they sell are in the public domain. Instead, in direct contradiction to firmly established copyright law, they claim turning old hard copy theological works into digital text allows them to claim possession of that text and make a profit off it. Not so.

Of all those working to expand their profit making ability through copyright law, Disney has to be one of the worst. Which is why this movie is priceless--click on through to the next page...