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

Re:This definitely

[Penguinisto]

Umm, yeah.

(Disclaimer: Catholic guy here. Take that as you will)

1) The whole story/argument/whatever is based on an organization that literally invented a little something called an imprimatur (The funny part is, the deal with Galileo was largely based on the fact that he printed his famous book and using a papal imprimatur without permission, but that's a whole other argument that I'm sure I'd be modded into oblivion for elaborating on).

2) They've sorta held the trademark for roughly 1400 years or so, and the office for roughly 1973 years (an estimate counting back to when Peter was named to the office, counting Dennis The Short's mathematical hose-ups on the whole Anno Domini tabulations.)

3) It's their office, thus their right... still open for parody and news purposes though, at least in western nations that enjoy freedom of speech. No different than if Tux the Penguin were registered as a trademark by the Linux Foundation, really (For instance, using Tux as a marker for Linux news stories, versus Microsoft using Tux as their new logo for Windows 8...) They're no further beyond or above secular law (outside of Vatican City) than any other organization... which makes the summary kind of a moot point.

No, actually the original IS copyrightd... sort of

[Fished]

Disclaimer: I have a Ph.D. in New Testament, so I know of what I speak. While the Greek Text itself is not (technically) copyrighted in certain forms, the specific arrangement of the Greek Text known as the "UBS4" that is the basis of all modern translations IS copyrighted. And the copyright is enforced. That is why I said "critical edition" or something along those lines in my original post.