What's Leaky up to? (was Re: Prayers For Lexicon Steve)

[Tim Regan]

Hi All,

After I mentioned Cruden's concordance Alla pointed out:
>>> But this is Bible. Who will be copyright holder in this instance? 
I mean I know you said non-copyright example, but to me it is the 
key, there is no living person to do so, no? <<<

No, I wasn't bringing in Cruden's concordance as an example of 
copyright infringement. What I was hoping to point out was that 
derivative works, even ones that are almost entirely the 
rearrangement of the original text, can be highly creative and 
extremely useful. In court JKR dismisses the importance of 
alphabetical rearrangement (JKR in Melissa's transcript):
>>> An alphabetical [list] is the laziest way to rearrange and sell 
my work <<<
But the enormous painstaking work Cruden did in rendering the bible 
alphabetically word by word is what makes it distinct and what makes 
it useful, and certainly wasn't lazy.

Now, whether such alphabetical word-by-word rearrangement infringes 
copyright or represents fair use is a legal argument that I don't 
understand. What I do understand is that it is different from the 
original work, it is useful, and it should be available.

But, as you point out the bible is not copyright (at least the King 
James version that Cruden worked with isn't) so is this relevant to 
the lexicon? I don't know. For all the lexicon's usefulness it is not 
as useful as Cruden, it's not as thorough. I'd find the lexicon 
useful enough to buy in book form though I know that's not a legal 
argument. 

Cheers,

Dumbledad.

PS The actual argument of whether bible translations are copyright is 
another interesting one I don't understand. I use 
http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/ as a guide. For example the 
King James version (1611) is public domain but the Tyndale version 
(1526) isn't.