German Court: Jesus Doesn't Deserve Copyright Protection

[unhappycamper]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140516/04103727250/german-court-jesus-doesnt-deserve-copyright-protection.shtml

German Court: Jesus Doesn't Deserve Copyright Protection
from the holy-shit dept
by Timothy Geigner
Fri, May 16th 2014 6:32pm

The initial copyright on a work is supposed to be bestowed upon the person who added that creative element that made it subject to copyright. For example, if you were to dictate a new novel, you should still get the copyright, rather than the stenographer who took down your words. But perhaps that gets a little trickier from a legal standpoint, when the "dictator" is supposedly Jesus. That leads us to a case recently decided in Germany that found that a woman, who directly claimed not to be the author of a book, gets to retain the copyright over those words... because she claimed the actual author was Jesus. As you can imagine, that raises some slightly unusual copyright questions. Via Adrian Rodriguez:

A verdict released by the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt (OLG) on Wednesday decided for a US claimant called the Foundation for Inner Peace. It sued a German foundation for copyright infringement after they published passages of text from a book called A Course in Miracles. The German foundation took passages from the book and justified their actions on the reasoning that Schucman herself claimed not to be the author or the messages, and that the text was a result of the dictations she received from Jesus.

The "author" in question, Helen Schucman, an American psychology professor, is on the record as stating that the texts she transcribed were authored not by her, but by Jesus in the form of ongoing dreams. Because I find it quite convenient to do so, I'd like to completely take Schucman at her word. She transcribed the work of Jesus. If we we do that, it's difficult to understand the German court's logic in this ruling. Copyright goes to the author of the words, which by Schucman's admission is not her. That should kind of be the end of the argument.

Except, the court decided that even if it takes her story as accurate, there would still be a legitimate copyright... for Schucman (and her heirs or assignees).

[rock]

1. It's hard to accept that what one (just) says is copyright

Have a nice day. (Uh-oh, am I in trouble!?)