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The AC pointed out how litigatous the Scientologist and LDS Churches get when their secret texts are distributed to the general public. But even mainstream religions get in on copyright as well. For example the most commonly used English translations of the Bible are protected under copyright law, for some and this copyright is rigorously enforced.

Zondervan has the copyright to the Bible.

Zondervan, among others, would probably disagree with you.

so hey... if it's good enough for Jehova, it's good enough for some piss-ant Texas town.

Ryan T. Sammartino

I think they rely largely on the integrity of users to maintain the copyright. Restrictions are permissive enough to allow general use, but strict enought to ensure that anyone who wants a complete copy finds it easier to buy one than to copy one!

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WTF?

Mozilla is kind of borked with respect to forms.
The delete key seems not to like me.


Anyway, to reiterate :


Not on any of the original texts, no. However, if you create a new translation/interpretation, you will have copyright over that.


The New International Version is an example - you have to pay for it. It's not available free (as in downloadable/redistributable) anywhere.

The copyright (I think) is currently helpd by a combination of the International Bible Society, The Committee on Bibile Translation, and Zondervan Publishing.

More info about it is here.

WTF?

Mozilla is kind of borked with respect to forms.
The delete key seems not to like me.


Anyway, to reiterate :


Not on any of the original texts, no. However, if you create a new translation/interpretation, you will have copyright over that.


The New International Version is an example - you have to pay for it. It's not available free (as in downloadable/redistributable) anywhere.

The copyright (I think) is currently helpd by a combination of the International Bible Society, The Committee on Bibile Translation, and Zondervan Publishing.

More info about it is here.

Not on any of the original texts, no. However, if you create a new translation/interpretation, you certainly will have copyright over that. The New International Version of the bible is an example - it's not available free anywhere. The copyright is currently held by a combination of the International Bible Society, the Commitee on Bible Translation, and . I think. There's info .

Not on any of the original texts, no. However, if you create a new translation/interpretation, you certainly will have copyright over that. The New International Version of the bible is an example - it's not available free anywhere. The copyright is currently held by a combination of the International Bible Society, the Commitee on Bible Translation, and . I think. There's info .

His attitude is a typical media-elite mocking dismissal of the numbing-down of what's socially acceptable. GnrcMan's comments about the Childhood Action Project's review also smack of politically correct "what's the big deal?" posturing. And replies to GnrcMan's comments reinforce the "what a funny, harmless movie" lock-step opinion. But words and images have consequences. A tragic example of that is the story on the Reuters wire yesterday about a 7-year-old boy killing his 3-year-old brother by copying a move he saw in televised pro wrestling.

I have no desire to see the movie. I can't even sit through the TV show. I never made it through an episode of Beavis & Butthead, either. Heh, heh, heh. Click. I seem to be one of the rare Slashdotters who sympathizes with Childhood Action Project (CAP), though, ( I'm a Christian raising two sons with my stay-at-home wife) so into the fray I go...

CAP is trying to quantify their analysis of the film. They offer their reviews as a tool for parents like me so I can decide which movies we'd like to take our family to see. (I'm not alone, BTW. Financial analysis shows that R-rated movies make less money than G, PG, or PG-13. Nowadays, Hollywood has to make R- and NC-17-rated movies to puff themselves up and say they've created "art." Of course, occasionally those ratings merely serve to attempt to make up for bad writing with less-than-mass-appeal shock value, too.) CAP makes subjective measures of Wanton Violence/Crime, Impudence/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, and Murder/Suicide. Sure, such metrics look like foolishness to the so-called "modern" worldview. In Katz' world, Wanton Violence/Crime and Murder/Suicide are harmless unless they happen in RL; Impudence/Hate is lauded as long as it's targeted at people of faith or anyone with conventional authority; Sex/Homosexuality and Drugs/Alcohol -- the more the better; and Offense to God -- well, he's dead, so he's an easy target.

Am I a repressed fanatic because I do my best to keep my kids innocent and to teach them what I know to be the truth? Hardly. It's my job as a parent to raise them with the values that I believe will serve them best. Do I teach my kids the value of free speech? Certainly, but freedom comes with responsibility.

Those values, BTW, do include tolerance. Intolerant Christians need to be confronted with Jesus' own central teachings -- he freely associated with the outcasts of society while he sharply condemned religious self-righteousness and hypocrisy. But Jesus taught tolerance in the context of having a personal, obedient relationship with God, denying our self-centered nature, and loving -- that's agape (look up the meaning of the Greek) -- one another. Such ideals can hardly be understood by a culture that doesn't even believe in God, celebrates selfishness and self-absorption, and lusts after one another without ever knowing what the word agape means.

My kids will have plenty of opportunities as teenagers to rebel against my values and choose for themselves. But it's still my job as a parent to show them where I stand on moral issues and to teach them responsibility.

Katz declares that, instead of being a comedy, South Park is actually a sharp, political film that exposes the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the so-called "Morality Industry." It's a sad, sad thing that people fall short of perfection. The only perfect man got nailed to a cross for his trouble. But careless critics confuse the Perfect Message with imperfect followers. Let anyone hold up a standard for (conventional) morality, and today he or she is denounced as an intolerant, self-righteous hypocrite.

As I once heard Ravi Zacharias say, "Before you tear down fences, be careful that you know why they were put up in the first place." Ethics and morals -- whether they are based on examples set by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, old, dead Greek philosophers, or Bill Clinton -- exist to draw boundaries for social behavior. South Park, it seems, wants to show what it's like without bondaries. And ... Parker and Stone want to show me this because ...?

The Apostle Paul sums it up: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." ( Philipians 4:8)

As has also been said, "If you swim in the sewer, you're bound to get dirty."

One final comment -- if you think hackers can't be Christians, what is to be done with Larry Wall?