Similar Translations

I am part of a group that hopes to create a new Bible translation. I have two questions.
First, there are only so many ways a particular verse can be translated, if you want both a highly accurate translation and good readable English. There are bound to be many verses and phrases that are worded very similarly to other, copyrighted Bible translations. And for a few of our translators, I'm afraid there will be a temptation to occasionally take a shortcut and make use of a copyrighted translation in part.
My question is at what point does similarity between two translations become a copyright violation? Even if I don't look at any other translation, will I have to edit out any similarities that show up, or avoid using any phrase that appears in any other version? Especially for familiar chapters and verses that we have memorized, how do you avoid being influenced by the copyrighted version you learned?
Are there any rules or guidelines you would suggest to keep us as safely and firmly within the law as possible?

My second question has to do with the work in progress. It may take years to finish. Individuals are translating single chapters, and then other individuals are making changes, corrections, improvements. For the finished project, the copyright will belong to our church body. But at this point all the work is being done by volunteers (almost all are pastors serving at churches in this church body, but they are not employees of the church body itself). How do we handle the copyright in this interim period? At this moment, it's not even an official synodical project, just a grassroots effort to get the ball rolling. Who owns the copyrights, and how do we establish what editing or use of these words is permitted before there is a final copyrightable product? Some of us may want to use portions from this translation in our sermons, Bible classes and newsletters while it's still being worked on. And we're fine with that, but we don't know copyright law.

No, you do not need to, nor do you really want to, scour over thousands of translations to disambiguate yourself from them. As you said, some of the text you are going to translate is not ambiguous. Not that I want to discourage you, but I have sincere doubts about the "highly accurate" part. The reason such doesn't exist is that the problem is HARD. The source texts aren't complete in all cases, and there is always subjective opinion as to the meaning of the use of certain words, etc... In addition to being a skilled linguist in ancient language, you also need some cultural understanding of those who set the passages down to begin with.

To answer the other question, each translator's work is protected by copyright the MOMENT they write it down. It would behoove you to have an legal assignment of all rights to the church for all the contributors.

Thank you for your reply.
I am well aware of how difficult a task it is. When I said “highly accurate” I was referring to a formal equivalency that seeks to stay as close as possible to the Greek and Hebrew vocables and word order, as opposed to a looser dynamic equivalency or paraphrase that values readability, interpretation and style over precision. Paraphrases permit much more creativity, and so elbowroom, to avoid bumping into other translations. It’s the confines of formal equivalency that will magnify the appearance of similarities. The more similar we are to the original, the more similar we will appear to be to each other.
I will get in touch with synod officials about working within a synod copyright from the start. Thank you.

Well most of the Hebrew vocables are still up for interpretation as is the punctuation which can make a substantial difference in the meaning of passages But even without paraphrasing, trying to come up with the proper vocabulary and syntax can be daunting.

Anyhow, none of that really matters legally. Good luck in your endeavors.

Actually, not consulting, reading or giving ANY consideration to other translations would probably be the best thing from a copyright basis. To run afowl of copyright in the case of a bible, you'd have to copy major parts of it verbatim. Heck, you'd probably have to photocopy it. The copyright isn't just the words but can extend to the appearance, type face, etc. I would make sure to use a face that is really common or one that nobody else uses.

At the same time, there is fair use, and a bible would have to be the shining example of fair use.

Your best bet is to keep good notes on source materials, translation discussions and decisions, etc. Who did what, etc. Document as much as possible. There are programs that can be installed on a website for project management involving many people. This might be the approach to use and you have built-in documentation.

For copyright and other reasons, the best way to distinguish your work is to include footnotes and commentary. The commentary and footnotes also have stronger copyright protection for you than a mere translation of the bible.

You must know how time consuming this is going to be, even with a qualified team of people. The management alone is going to be a full time job. You also must know there are only two reasons to do a new bible translation. One, to advance a specific agenda or two, to make money.

Too bad you are not likely to include any of the books the early editors left out, like Jesus as a child bringing dead birds back to life and killing a playmate who pissed him off. Perhaps you can point out to the bible thumpers that the coming of Jesus did away with the old law so they stop cherry picking rules from the Old Testament to use against those whose lives they want to control. That's the ticket, a bible for the morons who don't actually read it much less understand it. Oh sorry, then you'd have to put it on video and that is a different project.

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Quoting Conrad Hunter

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Actually, not consulting, reading or giving ANY consideration to other translations would probably be the best thing from a copyright basis.

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True. Actually reviewing other translations trying NOT to copy them is probably going to cause more harm than good.

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Heck, you'd probably have to photocopy it. The copyright isn't just the words but can extend to the appearance, type face, etc. I would make sure to use a face that is really common or one that nobody else uses.

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Sorry, there is more to translation copyright than just the appearance issues. In fact, the rendition of the translation is very MINOR aspect of the copyright. Use whatever font you think works best for you.

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At the same time, there is fair use, and a bible would have to be the shining example of fair use.

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Nonsense. Do you have a clue what fair use is? While you could copy a passage for review (or satirical) purpose, the bible is no different than anything else except in this case the underlying work is public domain. The derivative work is as protected as anything else.

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For copyright and other reasons, the best way to distinguish your work is to include footnotes and commentary. The commentary and footnotes also have stronger copyright protection for you than a mere translation of the bible.

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While the additional material will be well protected by copyright, it will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to increase or decrease the protection of their translation work.

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Quoting flyingron

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While the additional material will be well protected by copyright, it will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to increase or decrease the protection of their translation work.

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I believe that the goal here would be to document work product.

There are a lot of Bible translations that are now in the public domain. King James, for example, died quite a few years back. It's safe to use public domain works as reference points.

I agree on cost and market. It's going to be exceedingly difficult to turn a profit on a new translation of the Bible, and even if the goal is noble the amount of labor (and expense unless you have a lot of highly capable volunteers) will be massive.

The number of volunteers will very possibly be in the hundreds, all of whom are capable translators. The timeframe is years. The purpose is not to make a profit (we expect a significant cost, and fairly small market, at least initially). Nor is the purpose an agenda; if we achieve our goal, it will be a very broadly acceptable translation to just about any church body. The reason for the work is that the NIV has a new version that has been changed in ways that stray unacceptably far from the original languages (and they are refusing any use of their old version). The Southern Baptists have rejected it and already produced their own translation, but it's kind of quirky. And other versions available are either too much of a paraphrase, or too wooden or outdated.

"Actually, not consulting, reading or giving ANY consideration to other translations would probably be the best thing from a copyright basis."
The problem is, you have no idea how much of the Bible I have memorized in the NIV version, and when I'm translating, I can't help but consider how my wording measures up to what I'm familiar with.

I certainly don't have the interest, but you or someone in your team should reseach case law and media reports to see if anyone has ever been sued for copyright infringement in regards to a bible, and if there is any case law that might provide guidance. In any case, if the new bible is a translation of the original documents and it is documented, then copyright is not going to be an issue. Obviously many passages are going to be the same or similar to existing versions. There is much open to opinion, but much more where the translations are pretty well accepted.

A couple more questions have arisen. One person wanted to know, suppose after translating, he looks at every English Bible available, primarily to help him decide if he has mistranslated anything. But he finds a wording that reads smoother than his own, one that is used identically in numerous different copyrighted versions. Would he be in violation if he used the same wording?
The other question pertains to the source texts. Most people use the UBS Greek New Testament. It is a copyrighted collation of readings from all the ancient manuscripts. The manuscripts are public domain. The collation is copyrighted. But the UBS also lists in footnotes all of the significant textual variants. If a person translates from UBS, but makes his own selection of texts, different from the choices UBS made, is it still covered under UBS's copyright? This copyright law can be utterly confusing. I was going to say it's Greek to me, but it's actually much worse.

I have found the UBS website, so I will ask my second question directly from them.