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...

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

[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.

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.

Okay, fine

[HangingChad]

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

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