[sword-devel] [Fwd: BOUNCE sword-devel@crosswire.org: Non-member submission from ["Jeremy Bettis" <jeremyb@hksys.com>]]

[Jerry Hastings]

At 02:19 PM 12/13/2001 -0700, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

>But there are still expenses associated with creating the translation.
>Salaries of the translators, big expensive Greek and Hebrew dictionaries,
>etc.

True, ink and paper and such, need to be paid for by someone. And before 
the printing press a scroll was very expensive to produce. But if you had a 
scroll and had the money to cover the expenses you were free to make more 
copies. Though some religious officials may have objected for "religious" 
reasons.

>You can't expect someone to shell out $1,000,000 or so making a new
>translation, and then giving it away for free can you?

Yes, you can.

I know an electronics wiz who works full time, very long hours, designing, 
producing and maintaining equipment that is used by the Jesus Film Project 
to convert the film into other languages. He is paid by getting people to 
support him. I know people that go overseas to minister. They either pay 
their own way or find others to support them. So, what is the problem with 
translators? Are they too proud to ask for support? Don't they believe the 
Church will support their work? The Church is rich with money. It could buy 
a ship and turn in into a hospital and send it to poor countries. Oh, wait 
that has already been done. It could rent large stadiums around the country 
and pay large amounts to entertainers and speakers. Oh, wait that has 
already been done. It could buy airplanes to fly food and other needed 
things around the world. Oh, wait that has been done. It could buy 
satellites and send them into space to broadcast Christian programming 
around the world. Oh, wait that has been done. To bad it can't use the 
money to make good, free to use translations.

>  that needs to be recovered via royalties.

Why are royalties the only way?

Don't get me wrong. Life is a lot more complicated than this post makes it 
seem. And on other days I have been the one here telling others to give 
copyright holders some slack. There are reasons besides money for 
copyrights. And for the most part I believe the people responsible for 
Bible copyrights believe they are doing the right thing for the Church. If 
anyone is lead by God to copyright something that is between him and God. 
But, if this is something we are free to workout then I suggest that there 
are better ways to get things done than requiring royalties and copy 
permission. Not a big deal in English. But, I see that in many languages 
the restrictions are in the way of getting the Scriptures to the people.

Jerry (The younger one.)