Religion and Copyright

[John Dibble]

Inspired by the Church of Scientology - what lines should be drawn when regarding copyright and religion?

In a free society, individuals have the right to practice religion as they please so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. At the same time, in modern societies people are able to copyright, patent, and trademark various texts, names, ideas, phrases, etc. Occassionally though, these two things might occassionally come into conflict.

For example, there are Scientology practioners known as the "Free Zone" - followers of the teachings of Scientology outside of the actual Church of Scientology. You could think of them as the Protestants of Scientology. However, the Church of Scientology has trademarks and copyrights on many materials related to the Scientology belief set, and Free Zone groups have to avoid use of words trademarked by Scientology, including 'Scientology' itself!

Imagine if you would that modern copyright laws existed back in the days when Judaism and Christianity were founded. What if the Catholic Church tried to put a copyright on the New Testament? Any splinter group couldn't print their own Bibles if that happened.

Or what if the 'official' Jewish church tried to sue the Catholic Church for infringing on their copyright because the Old Testament is their religious text and they have a long standing copyright on it? Christianity would have to cut out the Old Testament from their Bible.

So obviously, religious organizations having copyrights and whatnot on their religious materials can place a heavy burden on any group that splinters from them but maintains core beliefs. So, who should the government side with on this? Should the original group be allowed to have all their copyrights and trademarks, or should a religious group not be allowed to hold copyrights? Or is there something inbetween where the group can hold a copyright on some of their materials, but not others?

Further still, what if a non-religious group copyrights something that is not intended to be religious, but a legitimate religion somehow forms around that material?


I'll give my thoughts later after thinking on it some more.

[dead0man]

If a religion can get stopped by copyright laws then it isn't much of a religion is it?