This repository was created to house the copyright notices for major English Bible translations in one place for educational purposes.
My aim is to facilitate translation choice for those who wish to quote the Bible and remain in good standing under United States and international copyright law. As always, note I am not a lawyer, and nothing in this repository should be considered as legal advice.
Eventually, I may develop this further into a site similar to https://choosealicense.com/
The status of the King James Version is unique, but I do not believe it's correct to say that it has entered the public domain. The rights are held by the English Crown under Royal prerogative, and Cambridge University Press is authorized as Queen's Printer through Letters patent.
Since the KJV was not produced in the United States, US copyright law isn't relevant. Since it is protected in the jurisdiction of its creation, it is not publicly available. Under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the translation was created, the KJV has never been released to the public domain.
The Crown has retained those rights, and the Queen’s Printer publishes the text with generous standard permissions for its use.
- https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/06/23/bible-copyright-law/
- https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/16377/what-major-translations-of-the-bible-are-in-the-public-domain
- The text of the following translations is available here: https://github.com/scrollmapper/bible_databases
- American Standard-ASV1901 (ASV)
- Bible in Basic English (BBE)
- Darby English Bible (DARBY)
- King James Version (KJV)
- Webster's Bible (WBT)
- World English Bible (WEB)
- Young's Literal Translation (YLT)