ANSWERS: 8
  • The Bible would be out of copy right....definitely older than 70 years.
  • The copyright for the Bible is owned by the individual publishers. More goes into a copyright than just who wrote it - as a matter of fact, the original Bible was written on scrolls. "Copyright" involves several things - the company that printed it, the style of text, the photos included (if any) - all of these attributes are part of the publishing process, making the finished product "intellectual property". It's this "intellectual property" that is copyrighted.
  • "The Bible" is not one thing. So: no one. *** The very first book actually called "the Bible" was a translation (into Latin) from documents originally authored in different languages. *** Under U.S. copyright law, any document that was published more than 120 years ago is no longer protected by copyright law and can be copied freely. *** On the other hand, any translation of a document is copyrightable. *** SO: modern Bible translations are normally copyrighted. The copyright holder is often the publisher, but sometimes an individual or corporation other than the publisher is the copyright holder. *** With respect to the King James Version Bible (KJV) in particular, since it is more than 120 years old it is not copyrighted in the U.S. However: several "modernized" editions are copyrighted. *** However, in The Commonwealth of Nations the KJV "Standard Text" is still protected under copyright law. In this case the copyright is held by "the Crown" (i.e. the monarchy) "in perpetuity" (i.e. forever), and so - in Commonwealth nations - only printers and publishers who have received the Royal Warrant are permitted to print the KJV. As far as I know, only three publishers in Commonwealth nations are permitted to print the KJV. *** US Bible publishers who want to sell KJVs in Commonwealth nations get around this by having a KJV that uses a text OTHER THAN the Standard Text, texts that have hundreds of differences when compared to the Standard Text. This is common among the largest U.S. Bible publishers (Nelson, Holman, Zondervan, Tyndale, etc.) Smaller U.S. publishers - who do not sell their Bibles in Commonwealth nations - don't have to worry about violating Commonwealth copyright law, and at least one such publisher does publish the KJV Standard Text in the U.S.
  • There really is no longer a "the bible". There are now many translations that have been published over the years, and the publishers own the copyrights to their translations. The original bible is the Latin Vulgate translated by St. Jerome in the 4th century AD from the scrolls and letters that survived the Roman and Hebrew persecution of the early Christians. Those papers were written in Greek, Aramaic, Syriac and probably other languages too. The Septuagint was used for the OT which had been translated and used by the Greek speaking Jews of the era.
  • The Bible is not copyrighted. The original texts were written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. They are languages that have been around for thousands of years.
  • The Bible itself is not Copyrighted, but many translations are, without knowing which version are you asking about we can't answer any further
  • It's public domain.

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