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Comment by Intermernet | Hacker News Reader

Apparently, the Bible is the Word of God. I'm not sure if copyright applies.

Romans 13:1-2 says: "Obey the government, for God is the One who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power. So those who refuse to obey the law of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow."

Acts 5:29 says: "Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!""

The US copyright act (chapter 3 section 302) states: "Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death."

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I expect that translating a work gives you a claim on the translation, which is a creative work. (Mechanical translation doesn't have this effect)

“it is my sincerely held religious belief that no translations in fact happened...”

While there are sects that consider certain translations to be special, or even divinely inspired, it’s usually pretty old ones which are out of copyright anyway.

that was my point, but i should have made it more explicitly.

I think a translation is a derived work, thus coming under the copyright of the original owner, not the translator. Not sure how that applies to translations of public domain works. I can assure you though that I am not the copyright holder of a Mickey Mouse translation in French just because I've translated it from English to French.

Copyright is different from patents in this way: I can own a patent on an extension of an invention that you hold a patent on. I can't own the copyright to a derived work of a work you own the copyright to. In fact, you automatically own the copyright of the derived work that I produced (e.g. Fanfiction)

Isaiah 64:8

But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.

Yes, exactly. Here’s what BibleGateway says about it: https://support.biblegateway.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001403...

Generally translations are subject to copyright and not considered inspired by Christians. There are a small minority of folks who consider the KJV an inspired translation, but that translation is too old for copyright law to speak to it.

For the purposes of copyright, the author is whoever translates/compiles it.

This isn’t just an issue for the bible; if you want the uncensored version of Samuel Pepys’ diary, for instance, you have to pay for it; it needs translation from shorthand, and the 19th century translations are censored.

Nietzche originally published the words "Gott ist tot" in 1882, so the copyright would have expired on or before 1952.

It's the translation where copyright applies.

Additional edit: removing somewhat off-topic discussion that was replying to an example in the above comment, and discussion of whether a controversial passage was censored.

And no, it was not censoring it (thanks to all of you who replied below pointing this out!). The issue was my incorrect editing of the URL without accounting for the fact that the URL contained URL-encoded characters, namely + as %20.

The documentation is pretty clear: http://bible-api.com/luke+14:26

It isn't censoring anything. Your url is incorrect.

It's not censored. You just have to use the correct URL.

https://bible-api.com/luke%2014:26

As others have mentioned your url is incorrect. FWIW, I was always taught that this verse meant that, since God is love, if one loves God first, it will improve ones love for family, etc. Also that when one does love their children, etc, even if they don’t realize it they are participating in God’s love. Take it or leave it, but not really as unpopular or controversial as you posit.

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