Holy See Declares a "Unique Copyright" On the Pope

An anonymous reader sends in news of what must be some kind of record in overreaching intellectual property claims: the Vatican has declared that the name, image, and any symbols of the Pope are for exclusive use of the Holy See. They may have a point if, as the declaration hints, some have used "ecclesiastical or pontifical symbols and logos to attribute credibility and authority to initiatives" unrelated to the Vatican. But how much room will they allow for fair use? Will high school newspapers have to remove the Papal Coat of Arms from their Vatican news columns? The royalty schedule was not released, so it's not clear how much Slashdot will have to pay to run this story (or if there will be a penalty for the accompanying pagan idol).

Comments

F/OSS Religion

[russlar]

Fortunately for the rest of us, the FSM is compatible with the GPL.

Re:F/OSS Religion

[girlintraining]

Fortunately for the rest of us, the FSM is compatible with the GPL.

The GPL allows you to modify the original work. The bible, however, clearly states that it is the word of God and should not be modified. It is therefore not GPL-compatible. The codebase it's based on is also of dubious origin.

But even if the licensing terms weren't crap, it'll never catch on. It's a buggy beta release that's been ported to other languages or forked dozens of times because the developers can never agree on a single design. It's also not very user-friendly: The interface tends to kill people, especially before you patch it to SP1 (New Testament). I'd be surprised if they aren't bankrupt in a year.

1900 years later...

Re:F/OSS Religion

[skine]

So you're saying that Jefferson's rewrite of the Bible falls outside of fair use?

Re:F/OSS Religion

[gmhowell]

The catholics condone feeding your only begotten son to perfect strangers. Which is worse?

Re:F/OSS Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first and only known good use of this stupid IP Laws. Nobody can use those words and symbols and thus reducing their spread, hopefully to the ultimate disappearance of them and further hopefully the demise of one of the religions.

I only wish other religions come up with their own versions of IP protections.

Re:F/OSS Religion

[DrXym]

I think by this point the bible can be considered abandonware.

Re:F/OSS Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you check out their newspeak dictionary? It's both hilarious and scary. Who knew the word algorithm meant 'an efficient and consistent step-by-step methodology for achieving a goal, the opposite of liberal style' or that altruism is in fact 'a counterexample to evolution'? It's fascinating. Did you know environmentalism is 'a mixture of pseudoscience and neo-paganism used to justify the imposition of socialistic controls'? Amazing. I never knew.

Oh and ladies, I believe there's lots of single guys over there! They're really committed to marriage too, I mean really! Who wouldn't want a husband that does such wonderful things as 'the pushing and prodding, analogous to what a supervisor, coach or sergeant does, that encourages and compels people in marriage to achieve their best' or 'a division of labor that enables each spouse to work on what he or she does best'! It'll be the BEST!

Re:F/OSS Religion

[vegiVamp]

Don't you like lamb, then ?

Please keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

That the take-down notice is a lightning bolt... up your butt. You've been warned.

Re:Please keep in mind

[gzipped_tar]

Next in the news: Farad cages most popular Christmas gift

Re:Please keep in mind

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The Pope's argument would be, of course, that(while God is certainly the ultimate owner of the copyright in question, among a large number of other things) he is God's authorized agent/distributor for this territory.

Since this seems like the best excuse for doing so that I've yet had, I include the "software licensing analogy for distinguishing between Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism" below:

Judaism is a corporate site licence: All members of the organization are automatically entitled to software under the terms of a legal agreement between the organization and the software producer.

Catholicism is per-seat licensing from a value-added reseller: The church has an agreement with the software producer, under which its sales reps entitled to sell the software, along with a suite of helper utilities and documentation supplements, and the support of its field techs, to any interested individuals.

Protestantism is retail shrinkwrap software: The individual buyer enters into a contractual relationship with the software producer, without intermediaries. All that the buyer receives is the software and the packaged manual(sola scriptura).

Addendum: Quakers are FOSS: Individuals get together communally, and anybody who the spirit so moves can get up and code something.

Re:Please keep in mind

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Indeed. Mostly commonly, users receive it by clicking on spam emails with subject header "Free Personality test!". Downloading "AntiThetan Pro 2009" is also a major source of infections.

prior art?

[nephridium]

Seeing the pictures here I believe there is a reasonably case for prior art, no? If anything the Vatican should pay George Lucas, as he has 25 years on them ;)

That being said imho the emperor from the Empire strikes back looked much more formidable, the pope should have gone with that look instead...

Interesting idea.

[girlintraining]

Next, those nativity scenes they try and throw up every winter will be declared illegal now because they haven't paid to license it from God. Atheists, you may now stop attempting to keep the church and state separate: Apparently, God has made himself illegal. Film at 11.

Re:Interesting idea.

[girlintraining]

We should condemn transsexualism and lesbianism as an immoral affront to the Wonder of God's creation.

A more recent version of morality is available. Changes include: Better support for alternative system configurations, 32bit color (your version is 1 bit), and fault tolerance.

Would you like to install the update now? _

Does this mean...

[myrmidon666]

We have to give money in chur.... oh wait. never-mind.

Better to eat them than rape them...

[FatSean]

FSM be praised. Ramen.

Re:Subject

[Loadmaster]

Hey, man! That'll be $50. Um, for the IP infringement, unless you're not a cop.

Re:Scope

[benjamindees]

The Pope? How many IP lawyers does he have?

Okay, fine

[HangingChad]

Please replace all references to the trademarked "Pope" with "Old Guy In The Funny Hat". Now that's better.

What about the Greek Orthodox Church ?

[dbcad7]

Don't they have their own pope ? Will they challenge this ?

Re:Simply following the Scientologists,

[jcr]

Of course to claim copyright they have to claim that the pope is a "creative work", like a play act rather than appointed by God.

Don't know how creative he is, but he's definitely a piece of work.

-jcr

Re:Scope

[vlm]

I really, really, doubt that anyone would be excommunicated for using the Pope's image without permission.

I laughed out loud at that one. Give the 4chan, fark, or slashdot guys a pope pic, a goatse pic, and some playground pics, and within minutes we'll all be scarred for life... Or the ever popular 2g1c theme applied to communion wine. All kinds of fun ways to get excommunicated.

Re:This definitely

[PopeRatzo]

Trademarks are a different story.

So come and get me, coppers.

Re:Scope

[cashman73]

IP Lawyers? Unfortunately, the Pope doesn't have access to them, considering that they've all been condemned to the firey pits of hell! Of course, one doesn't need IP Lawyers when all you have to do is ask God to smite all of the copyright "pirates" for you! Maybe CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal should each do 100 Hail Mary's to avoid being smitten?

Re:not unaware, it doesn't matter!

[Rob the Bold]

opps put bbcode instead of html... , well show i am fallible as any other man..LOL Council of Nicaea

Except the Pope, of course.