Vatican sends copyright enforcement notice over an encyclical

[muriel_volestrangler]

I was particularly excited to share the document with others. I wanted to discuss it with friends and invite unbelievers to read it, too. To that end, I had an idea: when the encyclical was released, I'd convert it, free of charge, to other popular formats like Kindle, Nook, iPad, and more. That would help thousands of people immediately engage the text, many of whom would otherwise never check it out (like people who exclusively use e-readers).
...
As soon as the encyclical went live I copied it over to a blank document, and over the next seven minutes I translated it into several eBook formats. I put them online, shared the links, and soon hundreds of comments and emails began pouring in from people saying, "Thanks! I only read on Kindle so without this, I probably wouldn't have read the encyclical" or "This is great! Now I can read it on my iPad."
...
I was so happy to help, but there was one big problem: I was absolutely wrong. I quickly received a litany of emails from the USCCB and Holy See, explaining that they had a clear and legitimate copyright on the text. And since I had no permission to share it, I was engaging in illegal activity. The folks could have, perhaps, used softer language—I was accused of &quot violating) both civil and moral law" and "stealing from the pope"—but they were unquestionably within their rights to ask me to remove the eBooks.
...
However a few months in, Matt was surprised by a letter from the USCCB. It explained that he did not have permission to share the Catechism and that he needed to shut down his project immediately. Confused and frustrated, Matt replied with an apology, asking if there was a better solution than shutting it down—perhaps partnering with the USCCB, or someone else with proper permissions. He was willing to do anything to keep the project running for the readers' sake. But in response, he received another cease and desist letter, mailed to his house, this one from the USCCB lawyers.

http://brandonvogt.com/free-word/#sthash.cXxSDRVr.dpuf

This really looks like they regularly shoot themselves in the foot. I could see they might be worried that words get changed, or edited out, that might make their messages look different. But lawyers' letters, accusing an enthusiastic Catholic of violating moral law, and stealing from the pope? Sheeesh.

[rug]

1. The article contains the solution.

Thankfully, it doesn't have to be like this. There are plenty of solutions that both protect the integrity of Church teaching while also granting free access to share it. One stands out and it's been suggested by many people:

Release all magisterial teaching under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NoDerivs license.

Here's what each of the elements in that fancy, technical name means:
•Creative Commons - A type of license that lets you share your work generously without losing your control over it
•Attribution - Requires that proper credit be noted on any reproduction
•NoDerivs - Prohibits changing or altering the work, or producing derivative versions

Under this license, people may copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of the work. It's an extremely popular way of safely distributing texts, especially digital content. In fact, over 400 million Creative Commons licenses have been deployed by individuals and large organizations, including Wikipedia. (The Creative Commons is partly why Wikipedia appears at the top of nearly every Google search page. The site is so popular because people routinely share its content. If the Church allows us to share her teachings freely and easily, we too would rise up in the search rankings.)

It points out that it's already done with other Church publications. Must have been a slow da in the Gneral counsel's office.

[dimbear]

2. That's encouraging. It shows the Vatican can act with dispatch when

something truly important is in play.