[CS-FSLUG] Advocacy Sword and Bolivia

Thu Apr 14 12:56:20 CDT 2011

Stephen,

I have the best hope and will join you in prayer that He will see this 
change.

Meanwhile, let me share with you that because it is so easy to get 
pirated materials there, there is little if no awareness of the 
alternatives, and no real interest to change.
People, including believers, do not see piracy as a sin, which is 
exactly part of the Scheme to keep them bound in sin - as Bill Gates has 
pointed out, piracy makes people dependent on Microsoft, and all that 
remains is to "figure out how to charge them someday"

I personally find myself in a bind.  Scripture (1 C 8, 1 Co 10) makes me 
feel I am intruding in a matter of personal conscience. Yet, I do point 
out the advantages of enjoying a virus-free life :-)

Buying a copy also raises a neat little point in the consciousness of 
people.  People do "pay" for the pirated software (as they would be 
asked to pay for legal one) as such they feel they are "clean".  They 
paid, they own it, they're good. If there was some piracy involved, it 
is not they...

OTOH, my soul smarts on the matter of people who will happily register 
their copyright on God's word.  I know and agree that copyrights - 
reasonable ones, maybe 12 years - have a good reason to exist, but all 
of God's word, or materials directly using God's word are IM upset 
opinion, of the highest order Public Domain, actually above it if there 
ever was such a classification as Creation Domain.

My conversation with the Bible Union in Bolivia, regarding their Aymara 
translation of the Bible, was totally unfruitful.  The current version 
is now Public Domain in Bolivia (50 years after publication), and thus I 
shouldn't care, except that they are finally doing a revision...

Of course I boycott Zondervan, and I was happy of visiting a church 
recently where (I was told later it was merely a coincidence) several 
songs during worship where indicated in the screen as "public domain".  
I am so weak that in my own church, every time the projector reminds me 
that such and such song which copies words from the Bible doesn't belong 
to God and us but actually is owned and we are paying some mayor 
entertainment company more known for its strong support of sensual 
lifestyle choices, it really messes up a chance to think about that song 
helping me focus in healing my soul or anything worthy.

Meanwhile a several-year campaign to recuperate previous translations 
held by SIL with many other Bolivian Native languages has not got any 
results either. While their calls for more money for translations arrive 
to my mailbox quite often, those already existing materials, maybe the 
last known copy, sit uncopied, undistributed and hopefully at least 
protected in some storage. Some of those are likely to become not only 
obsolete but downright useless as time passes, the corresponding tribes 
dying off without the benefit of clergy, to use the idiom in its true 
sense :-(

A multi year effort by some Avant missionaries to transfer reel-to-reel 
tapes of jungle languages was completed several years ago, them leaving 
several CD copies in different locations.  None of those can be 
retrieved now, several of them likely lost - who knows, maybe all of 
them - bless their heart, they retired to Canada without keeping a copy 
themselves...

Have you ever responded to an appeal to help translation of Scripture? 
be aware that most likely those efforts will be "owned" later by 
someone, or lost and not reach those they were meant for - I know of 
extremely few Scripture materials that are both recent and Free, and 
just merely rescuing those in storage and making them available would 
already maybe make an impact at extremely small additional cost - after 
all, their preparation has already many times been paid for.

BTW, anything published pre 1961 is now totally legal to copy in Bolivia 
and those countries that were not forced yet to follow the example of 
the US to bow to Hollywood. Thus any such initiative regarding the very 
popular Reina Valera 1960 can legally be distributed from a server in 
Bolivia - that might be simpler that getting the copyright holders to 
understand  that freely you have received and freely you should give... 
(and in many case not even free - many of them owe their whole 
livelihoods to donations, they didn't get the stuff simply for free, 
they were and are /paid/ to "own" the stuff - absurd, innit?)

On 04/14/2011 12:24 AM, sjm wrote:
> I just finished a newsletter to send out to our prayer and support 
> team and thought I'd share a portion of it here.  (If you'd like to 
> see the whole thing you can see it here: http://eepurl.com/dnoeX
>
> Your Help Needed
>
> One thing that has been an interest of Steve's is to be able to get 
> Bible study tools in the hands of those that may not have the means to 
> get them (legally, at least).
>
> The background is that in Latin America it is very easy to get pirated 
> copies of software and programs for a computer.  If the software was 
> bought legally it would be out of their reach financially.  So, Steve 
> has been advocating alternatives, when the opportunity comes up, that 
> are legally within the reach of the common Latin American person.
>
> One of the tools that could help is The Sword Project 
> (http://crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp). The one thing that is lacking 
> is that the owners of the copyrights for the more up to date 
> translations in English and Spanish have not given permission to have 
> their translations published for use with The Sword Project. See this 
> link:
> http://www.crosswire.org/wiki/Copyright#Contacting_Copyright_Holders
>
> Would you be willing to pray for this effort and even write or call 
> the copyright holders so they might give permission to The Sword 
> Project to publish their modules?
>
> You can use my name and email address if you would like:
>
> Stephen J. McCracken
>
> Please let me know how it goes if you decide to pray or to help out in 
> other ways!
>
> ---------
>
> To quote a little from the Crosswire Wiki:
>
> Guidelines to Follow in Corresponding with the Copyright Holders
>
>     * Be friendly (remember you are a Christian, act like one)
>     * Explain you use BibleTime, Xiphos, or The SWORD Program for 
> Windows. These programs use SWORD modules. Tell them you wish to be 
> able to use their work with that program. Emphasize that each of these 
> projects are free software (Open Source), non-commercial and receive 
> NO payment whatsoever.
>     * Explain you would like to see them support The SWORD Project by 
> either granting The CrossWire Bible Society the right to freely 
> distribute their work or setup up a way to pay a small fee to be able 
> to use their work. Make sure you indicate you would be willing to pay 
> the small fee to be able to use their work.
>
> ---------
>
> Translations and Their Copyright Holders
> The American Bible Society/United Bible Societies
> http://www.americanbible.org/about/contact
>
>     * Reina Valera - 1960 (RV60)
>     * Reina Valera - 1995 (RV95)
>     * Reina Valera Contemporánea (RVC)
>     * Dios Habla Hoy (DHH)
>     * Traducción en Lenguaje Actual (TLA)
>     * Contemporary English Version  (CEV)
>     * Good News Translation (GNT)
>
> Baker Publishing Group
> http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&type=InfoRequest&nm=Form&mod=Information+Request&level=1&id=F4460FB2FD974619A2F83CD716EC9492 
>
>
>     * God's Word Translation (GW)
>
> Biblica (formerly International Bible Society)
> http://www.biblica.com/contact-us/
>
>     * Nueva Versión Internaccional (NVI)
>     * Castilian (CST)
>     * New International Version (NIV)
>     * New International Readers Version (NIrV)
>     * Today's New International Version (TNIV)
>
> Holman Bible Publishers
> http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/connect/contact.asp
>
>     * Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
>
> The Lockman Foundation
> http://www.lockman.org/mail/index.php
>
>     * La Biblia de las Américas (LBLA)
>     * Nueva Biblia Latinoamericana de Hoy (NBLH)
>     * New American Standard Bible (NASB)
>     * The Amplified Bible (AMP)
>
> Thomas Nelson Publishers
> http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/dept.asp?dept_id=1117900&category=Contact-Us 
>
>
>     * Nueva Biblia al Dia (NBD)
>     * New Century Version (NCV)
>     * New King James Version (NKJV)
>
> Tyndale House Foundation
> http://www.tyndale.com/00_Home/contact.php?lang=eng
>
>     * Nueva Traducción Viviente (NTV)
>     * New Living Translation (NLT)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
> Christiansource at ofb.biz
> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>
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