Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Is the Torah in the public domain? (If not, what license is it?)



The public domain is, put simply, a collection of works that can be used by anyone, that are not copyrighted.


Is the Torah in the public domain? If not, how can we be printing and copyrighting it? And, if not, what license is it under?


From my understanding, works can enter the public domain either if the author has been dead for 70 years, or if it was published before 1923. Now, assuming Hashem wrote the Torah, He isn't dead. (Nor "alive" by our definition, but that's irrelevant.) And, the Torah was published in 2448, which is after 1923 (hence copyright law should apply). And lest you say that because it was written long before that, it should be in PD, Wikipedia has already clarified:



The claim that "pre-1923 works are in the public domain" is correct only for published works; unpublished works are under federal copyright for at least the life of the author plus 70 years.









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