[sword-devel] Bible in Basic English

[jhphx]

It may have been published at one time with copyright notice and another 
without. The Public Domain claim was suppose to be due to a 1965 
publication of it. Find such a copy without copyright and that would 
establish that it then went out of copyright in the US. That is my 
understanding but I could be wrong.

If so then it was Public Domain (in the US) but then latter again it wasn't.

Forever can be a tricky thing. Some such lost copyrights were later 
restored. If a copyright owner wanted to enforce the restored copyright, 
on those who had relied on the Public Domain status of the work, the 
owner was "directed to notify reliance parties if the owner of the 
rights planned to enforce the rights. One means of notification was 
filing with the Copyright Office a Notice of Intent to Enforce (NIE) a 
Restored Copyright." (Quoted from https://www.copyright.gov/gatt.html )

If you were not a "reliance party" at the time then you should probably 
treat it as under copyright. Again, just my understanding.

Even so, maybe it is Public Domain, yet again.

A copyright holder saying "copyright now applies only in the UK proper. 
We wouldn't seek any enforcement outside of the UK," could perhaps be 
taken as stating that they consider the work PD "outside the UK." But 
what do I know. Consider that a guess and I would want that email or 
better, if I was going to rely on that statement.

Why not contact them again and ask for formal permission to distribute 
or their acknowledgement that you don't need it?

Jerry


On 3/7/2020 11:36 AM, Michael H wrote:
> Is there documentation anywhere about the specific claim that the 
> Bible in Basic English is in the Public Domain?
>
> As of November 2019, the Wikipedia article on Bible in Basic English 
> claims the work is copyrighted. It appears it was created by an editor 
> within Wikipedia, which amounts to creating a falsehood, but just in 
> case there's a IP grab going on.. does anyone have documentation of 
> this version regarding its works copyright status?
>
> I know the story (published with no copyright statement in the USA, 
> forever making it public domain here.) ...