Talk:Copyright on religious works
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"In the end, Maaherra lost the case, on the argument that the members of the church had given an original direction to the work by selecting and formulating their questions. By giving this strange twist to the judgment, the judge avoided having to rule on the existence of the space aliens, but may also have damaged the respect for the secular law as felt by Americans."
"strange twist"? "damaged the respect for the secular law as felt by Americans"? I hardly see why; selection and formulation are creative acts deserving of copyright under the law. Removing this as POV. --Prosfilaes 23:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Original research
This section appears to be an unprofessional opinion about this particular case, and original research. It is neither cited nor sourced. I am moving it to discussion until an expert opinion and sources can be provided per WP:VER, WP:NOR, and WP:RS:
A similar case arose when the copyright owners of A Course in Miracles sued New Christian Church of Full Endeavor for distributing A Course in Miracles. The court ruled that the copyright on the manuscripts was violated, and wrote, quoting from the above case:
"In a case similar to this one, the Ninth Circuit recently held that, notwithstanding a spiritual book's "celestial" or "divine" origins, the originality requirement necessary for a valid copyright was satisfied because the human beings who "compiled, selected, coordinated, and arranged" the book did so "'in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.'" Urantia Found. v. Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958 (9th Cir. 1997) ("Urantia") (quoting 17 U.S.C. ยง 101)."
However, in the final judgement, copyright on the published text was not upheld, because it was published without a proper copyright notice, which was required under US law at the time.
...Ste4k 05:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
- What part of it is an unprofessional opinion? The quote is a quote from the judge's findings, and the rest is fact, based off the official court record of Urantia Found. v. Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958
(9th Cir. 1997).
