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World's Oldest Book is GPLed
figlet writes "The Diamond Sutra is the 'World's Earliest Dated Printed Book.' It was discovered in China in 1907 and now resides at the British Library." The colophon reads: "Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong. (May 11, 868 A.D.)" Apparently this was version 0.001 of the
GPL.
The original texts (well, the canonical texts anyway - there are no original copies) were in circulation 1700 years ago. Copyright law allows at most 90 years after the authors' deaths. Even ignoring the pragmatic reasons, no it could never be copyrighted.
Translations are a whole different matter. The King James version is over 500 years old and thus in the public domain for the same reasons as the early texts. A number of other older Bibles are also in the public domain.
The NIV (the best of the contemporary English translations in my opinion) is copyrighted - every copy plainly states that it is licensed by The International Bible Society. The terms of use are more liberal than the standard fair use provisions (see the NIV copyright statement.)
Other modern translations have different requirements, but since Bible translators tend to do so out as a missionary calling rather than a source of income, the terms are often very liberal. A good comparison would be the World English Bible copyright or the New American Standard.
I believe there is a project to do a new, explicitly public domain translation, but I can't find their URL and I've forgotten the name.
The GPL is only the current incarnation of a spirit of openness, harmony, and cooperation which has existed since the beginning of the universe.
Therefore, Linux is a fundamental element of the universe.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
A serious answer to a question posed in jest:
No. The Kama Sutra is an overhyped antique version of The Joy of Sex, whereas the Diamond Sutra is one of the chapters of the Prajnaparamita ("Sutras of Transcendental Wisdom"), one of the most important works in the Mahayana canon. For example, Zen thought is largely based on the Prajnaparamita sutras, with the Diamond Sutra in a special role.
The literal meaning of "sutra" is just "thread", essentially a recording of a line of thought, and not all that different from sutras on Slashdot. =)
Cheers,
-j.
I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. - Revelation 22:18-19
Of course, there is no restriction at all on redistribution. :)
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
It is not at all uncommon to find things similar to the one described at the beginning of Buddhist scriptures and suttas. It was considered a meritotious act to distribute copies of the scriptures; in China and Japan, the rich would donate to the temples and monestaries to have a copy of a particular sutta(e.g the diamond) or a set of suttas (e.g the Digha Nikaya, or Long Discourse) published. It was even considered the duty of monks to expound the teachings to anyone who asked(notice that this includes "anyone who asks", not prostelytizing to the uninterested or followers of other religions). So there is really nothing all that odd about the inscription on the inside of this particular book. Anyone familiar with this tradition could probably tell you about it and probably better than I. I really fail to see what it has to do with the GPL; to be honest, if I didn't know better I would call this a crosspost from segfault. If you wanna know a bit more about the suttas, check out Access to Insight, or Dharmanet.
PS- yes, I do know how to spell "sutra". It's Sanskrit, I use Pali. These things happen.
GPL: You are encouraged to give copies to anyone and everyone. You are encouraged to make any changes you like, but you MUST make those changes available under the same terms.
BSD: You are encouraged to give copies to anyone and everyone. You can make any changes you like, and you can use any license you like for said changes.
Shareware: You are encouraged to give copies to anyone and everyone. DO NOT make any changes.
Since this book promises eternal damnation and hellfire if you add, subtract, or alter anything in it, I would call it the world's first piece of shareware.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
If I wrote a book, and marked it as "universal free distribution", could someone make a copy it, then copyright their copy, and possibly sue me for infringment?
Actually, I think you are misunderstanding the copyright that is being applied. The information in the book, and the way that the information is being presented in the book is subject to the "universal free distribution" clause. The photographer/artist's picture of the book is in itself intellectual property, hence the copyright.
IANAL, but it follows that you are using a copyrighted photograph (regardless of what the picture is) on your website without the owner's, then you are breaking the law. If you simply were taking the text from the photograph of a non-copyrighted book, and posting that up then you would not be violating the law (both from the "universal free distribution" clause and the expiry of the copyright itself).
The board is claiming copyright of an image, not the book. (see later in the thread for postings about translations.)
Rather, a true GPL'ed book would be... The Bible!
Think about it: at first, there was only a couple of books. Then, a lot of people made contributions. A commity (the Vatican) decides what goes in and what doesn't go into a "kernel", or approved dogma. Then they release the new version. People are free to branch the Bible, and indeed, we've seen a few kernel forks over the years. The most important was probably the "Kernel fork 1", where the Old Testament ('Torah' release) and the Old/New Testament forked and formed two separate developper's groups. A few developpers (called apocryphs) saw their contribution cut from the codebase.
Unfortunately, after the kernel fork, the source became closed and proprietary. There's been an attempt to rebuild the codebase by one Muhammed, but it was closed-source and a thousand years later, there's not even been a patch or a single Service Pack.
Oh, did I mention there's also a distro war going on?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
So if the Kama sutra is for what you pleasing the wife, is the Diamond sutra what you need to read to get her to be your wife? :)
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I'm going to be a wet blanket and respond seriously to a funny post...
It's origin is highly speculative. Some Buddhists believe that it (along with all other Sutras) where written during the lifetime of the Buddha and hidden by the King of the Nagas "until the world was ready." (Nagas are intelligent water-snakes.)
Western scholars put the authorship of this and other sutra to around 2-400 years after the death of the Buddha (around 2,500+ years ago), and the location in Northern India.
This type of "license" was common amongst Buddhist writting, and some books by modern monks are realeased with similar statements at the begining. (However, they have a big ol' copyright at the begining.)
Note: I _am_ Buddhist (Tibetan Drikung Kagyu), and find the Diamond Sutra to be a powerful and beautiful statement of Buddhist belief.
Myddrin
If you follow that link, you'll find that whoever took the photo of the book (The British Library Board), has slapped a 1997 copyright on it. This in itself brings up an interesting question.
If I wrote a book, and marked it as "universal free distribution", could someone make a copy it, then copyright their copy, and possibly sue me for infringment?
To me, "universal free distribution" would seem like as loose a GPL as you can get. Basically, you are setting absolutely no limits on it's distribution.
So here come the brits (no offense), who reproduce Mr. Wang Jie's (if that's a female name, forgive me) work. And they copyright their work?
Either way this could be good or bad. If you had some copyrighted software you wanted to use, you can just copy it, and copyright your copy.
When it comes down to it, I honestly believe that the original copyright stands. Thus, the British Library Board's claim at copyright is invalid, and I can copy this picture and put it up on my homepage.
the author destroyed all copies of his previous book, "The Big Wu" ...
The Diamond Cutter Sutra is one of the main Buddhist teachings on Emptiness. You can get it in Tibetan, along with a lot of other Buddhist texts in Tibetan at The Asian Classics Input Project. Yes, that's right, it's available on the web, and also in CD form. Ain't technology wonderful?
No The Book of Revalations clearly states that any changes made will result in the changee's eternal damnation to hell.