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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).
Fortunately for the rest of us, the FSM is compatible with the GPL.
Anybody want my mod points?
That the take-down notice is a lightning bolt... up your butt. You've been warned.
...who have found using IP an effective way to manage criticism.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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...
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
We have to give money in chur.... oh wait. never-mind.
*Process is Irrelevant, Progress is Paramount*
FSM be praised. Ramen.
Blar.
I think that many religions would site religious texts as evidence of prior art on that one.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
In any organization connected to the Catholic church. This includes various parishes around the nation, high schools, some colleges, and any student or teacher organizations that are part of those. For example, a student-run newspaper at a Catholic university such as Notre Dame would be restricted in their use of papal symbols.
Even ignoring the fact that the U.S. does have treaties with the Vatican and would uphold their copyrights in court, a Catholic organization would suffer far more damage by being cut off from the church (i.e. excommunicated).
Disclaimer: I am Catholic and this does not bother me.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Hey, man! That'll be $50. Um, for the IP infringement, unless you're not a cop.
Something that I rarely hear pointed out is that, with copyright as we know it today, Christianity would have died "in the womb." Imagine if the various churches who were the recipients of Paul's letters were unable to make copies and forward them to other churches. Imagine if the Bible were originally copyrighted (the way that the modern critical texts are! I still don't really get that one--how a 2000 year-old text can be coyrighted.) Copyright is an enemy of the Christian faith, and I'm disappointed in the Vatican--of course, here I am a Baptist whose theological 40% evangelical, 30% Anbaptist, and 30% Eastern Orthodox, so maybe that's not surprising.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
All they need to do is register their symbols, images, etc as trademarks in every country of the world.
Ugh... I wish people would stop mixing up the difference between trademark and copyright. Notwithstanding that the Vatican is a sovereign state and can do whatever the heck it wants within its boundaries, what they're really declaring is that the trademark of the Pope is going to be reserved for their exclusive use. Copyright isn't even involved here.
The Pope? How many IP lawyers does he have?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
There's been at least one long standing battle in the US over much the same problem: people taking an image, name and/or conceptual equivalent, and using it in such a way as to ... dishonor is frequently used here, but not many understand the it from the injured parties' standing.... insult is closer but too weak ... we'll just say: to promote a commercial product, the juxtaposition of the appropriated image and the product being contrary to the known statements of the party imaged and/or the descendants.
The product in this case is Crazy Horse malt liquor. Crazy Horse spoke out against alcohol many times, specifically claiming its use was destroying his people. His descendants have been trying to get the brewer to stop using the name. No, they didn;t attempt to acquire copy right or trademark protection, because they didn't think they'd need it. In their culture, such protection is automatic and seated deeply in the cultural mores.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Under the Berne Convention and all other copyright treaties, local copyright laws apply in every country. Trademark laws are local as well. The state of Holy See could pass legislation copyrighting the Bible for God's sake (pun intended), and it would have no impact whatsoever on the rest of the world, where that legislation has no relevance.
Whether organizations around the world connected to the Roman Catholic Church are affected by this isn't a matter of copyright law. That's simply a matter of the rules that a church lays out for its members. If the RCC says "no meat on Friday" or "no condoms" or "no use of the pope's logo without permission", that's just a church being a church. I can see members of that church being concerned about a change in those rules, but is this News For Nerds or Stuff That Matters? No.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
My guess is that if it's ever used it be against idiots like:
'Pope' Pius XIII
http://www.truecatholic.us/
or other people who set themselves up as the pope... Just a guess though...
Who do they think they are, god?
Stonewolf
Wait, are you talking about the church, or copyright holders?
Circumcision is child abuse.
I haven't been able to find the actual Vatican statement, but as the news accounts describe it, it looks like this is really nothing more than a routine trademark claim. I don't think they're claiming that you can't refer to the pope or even display his symbols without permission. They just don't want them used in such a way as to suggest that the Pope has authorized something without permission. This is the same as a regular trademark. You can talk about IBM and even portray its logo; you just can't use them in such a way as to suggest that you speak for IBM or are affiliated with IBM.
Please replace all references to the trademarked "Pope" with "Old Guy In The Funny Hat". Now that's better.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I dunno, you don't get executed for having an unauthorised copy of the bible like in the good old days.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
As the Vatican is a state with soverign rights and its own laws, I'm sure that this is totally enforceable - inside the Vatican's border that is!
Don't they have their own pope ? Will they challenge this ?
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Per your link
In fact if you want to run the numbers there is about 2 billion flowing through Souix Falls South Dakota in a year. And they have a larger military footprint.
...erm... Dakota do this?
OMG! How in the heck can a
Stop being offended because it has a cross on it. You are becoming the thing you purport to hate.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Well since we can no longer use "the name, image, and any symbols of the Pope", the sensible solution would be for the rest of the world to make up a new name, image and symbol for use when referring to the person formerly known as Pope. The competition for the new name, image and symbol will remain open until end December 2009, and the winner will get free permission to visit the city-state formerly known as Vatican. All entries must be open sourced.
And, in other news...
The Pope was today sued by God for GPL violations of the Bible. The complaint submitted by God claimed that all material published by the Holy Father was required to be released under the GNU General Public Licence because it was a derivative work of the scriptures.
The distinction between copyright, trademark, and patent law is important in todays information wars.
It is somewhat unsurprising that a Catholic is blissfully unaware that nowhere in the New Testament is there any mention of Peter being named to this office, that Jesus even established the Papacy, or that Peter was even regarded as a bishop.
Most references only discuss the concept of Peter being in that role from about the 4th century AD, and indeed the Catholic church had to issue a document in the 1960s to codify this belief as dogma.
Still, trademark isn't something you can just claim out of the blue. Unless they've already had a trademark since the start and enforced it, those symbols will have lapsed into common use since a long time.
I'm not sure there (thankfully) exists any IP form appropriate for what they want to do. Even if they could claim trademark, they'd end up having to enforce it against ten year olds webpages which would make them look like (even bigger) asses.
Perhaps they could offer to sign anything they endorse with the official Papal Public Key instead.
the first Bishop... hmmmz that'd be James The Just.... you know the guy who nearly had Saul/Paul thrown off the walls of Jerusalem for generally recruiting the diaspora and non jews to the "faith".
James the Just was the.. BROTHER of Jesus, the ELDER brother according to every writing contemporary to the times.
he was the first "Mebakker"(bishop/guardian)
funnily enough just after Constantine thought it'd be a great idea to perpetuate the Roman empire thought the Church of Rome there first appeared the fake entries in "Josephus : Antiquities of the Jews" which mentioned Jesus in an allegedly contemporary writing.
while Josephus DID indeed write the Antiquities of the Jews" the entries regarding Jesus were proven to be slotted in.
the same technique that identified the different authors of the bible was used to discover that the entries were indeed faked. The antiquities of the Jews also mentions James as the brother of Jesus and this could also be written off as fakery were it not for this also being said BY Origen in around 234 when quoting Josephus but makes no mention of the "Testimonium Flavianum" (wee bio of jesus) and also mentioned in the Dead Sea SCrolls (see James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls)
so... if James was his ELDER half brother..... how can the immaculate conception have occurred...... let me help you.. it didn't it just helped weave in the mythology of other Romano/Greek deities into the mix.. i could go on the the rest of the mythology surrounding jesus and his alleged story but i can't be bothered atm.. am on call and may have to shoot out and tend to my flock of clients who can't find their own ass with a map as far a their PC's go
Who cares? The copyright/trademark holder doesn't get to make this decision.
Well, it depends on whether you think a religion is a set of doctrines or a social construction.
I wasn't implying that they didn't have the RIGHT to such a copyright/trademark, I was simply trying to point out the underlying problems with trying to enforce such a copyright claim. Given the especially litigious atmosphere surrounding IP and copyright these days, it seems to me that the the Papacy may have invited trouble unnecessarily.
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.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
i stated nothing that cannot actually be backed up fully and entirely by very learned men with a VAST amoutn on knowledge which you clearly are not in posession of.....
Then perhaps you should give it to them, so they can learn for themselves.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So come and get me, coppers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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?
But how's that relevant?
I could say I'm an Apple employee, wear black etc. Doesn't necessarily make me one.
Or I could even say I'm a hardcore Apple Fan. But if I actually serve and follow the Chair Throwing Steve instead, my claims would be in doubt.
I could say I'm serving the American Public and Protecting the Children. But it could be just a bunch of bullshit to get votes.
opps put bbcode instead of html... , well show i am fallible as any other man..LOL Council of Nicaea
Except the Pope, of course.
I am not a crackpot.
Italian guy here. Studied what an imprimatur was and its implications in literature in high school. In Galileo's times, imprimaturs ("be it printed", Latin) were necessary to print books in several areas of Italy, including, of course, the Papal States and all states that cared about good relationships with Rome. Therefore, obviously had Galileo to falsify one to publish a book, he would not have been able otherwise.
On the other hand, imprimaturs were widely recognised as marks of bad quality publications. They caused the same reaction that a label reading "this videogame has been approved by the Christian union of concerned mothers" would today.
No book worth reading has ever received the imprimatur, to my knowledge.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
WTF? What kind of schools do you have in America?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This is neither trademark nor copyright, it is a statement of Church policy, and possibly a clarification of a particular application of a provision of Canon Law that deals more with the organizational integrity of the Catholic Church than anything else.
It has nothing really to do with copyright or trademark, but this is Slashdot, so things unrelated to IP law in general and copyright in particular get shoved into those frames anyway.
As a product of 12 years of catholic schooling, let me just say that this is generally regarded as ret-conning. You can tie institutional Catholicism to Peter though scripture, but drawing a line from Peter through to Leo is a bit dicey.
If they claim they aren't Christians, then they aren't Catholic either.
In any case, there's one simple test to determine whether someone is a Christian or not - Nicene creed (yes, there is more than one version; I'd consider a person accepting any one currently in use a Christian).
If they claim they aren't Christians, then they aren't Catholic either.
I know it, you know it, but there are a whole lot of people who don't seem to realize it.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The first two having apostolic and historic roots (ie go all the way back to apostles and first Christians) separated in 1054.
Actually all three branches have apostolic roots the only difference being that the Orthodox schism happened earlier than the Protestant one. Anglican bishops still trace their lineage back through the Catholic church to the apostles.
Just to clarify, since the content of this thread is starting to fall under the category of "non-falsifiable religious belief", the idea of verifiable "truth" or "falseness" doesn't really come into play. So, saying something is "true" in this context, at best means that you "believe it to be true" to you, and to the other members of your faith. It cannot be independently verified via the scientific method to be "true" or "false" (not "true").
On the other hand, the two catchy phrases are inherited from a number of qualities and behaviors that have been observed in adherents of those religions, and may actually be statistically verifiable.
For example, Protestants have the the Puritan "work-ethic" driven by the idea that God "blesses" his chosen or "saved" ones with hard-earned wealth. Many Catholics have guilt complexes over things that typically hurt nobody. For example, eating meat on Fridays in Lent, breaking restrictions on various sexual activity, etc.
These are real and measurable psychological phenomenon. So, oddly enough, the claims that those catchy phrases made, actually have the capability to be measured. In contrast, the claims that the dogma makes do not.
Notice he said "Catholicism" and "Protestantism" and not "Catholics", and "Protestants" - even though, I admit I would complain in the latter case as well because I wanted to bring up doctrine each of the groups subscribe to.
The truth of statements I have presented about *Catholicism* is verifiable in the official doctrine of the Church, and about *Protestantism* by research about the doctrines of the majority of them (since they differ in teaching, as pointed out by others).
To expound now on what I previously said in the light of what you added: The guilt we feel when we sin should (primarily?) be the product of our love for God whose will we disregard when we sin. Its source is also conscience which I believe is more refined in Christ seekers (I'm not talking about nominally Christians as a whole) than the moral and ethics of the world. Again, not punishment, but love & conscience.
Any difference between behavior expected of subscribers to Catholic teachings, and that observed in nominally Catholics, it can be a product of what is called "bad spirituality" - another one of Satans traps (ie he convinces you you cannot be forgiven, even though it's not true).