Re: copyright under stress

On Tue, Jun 13, 2000, Ransford Pyle <pyle[_at_]mail.ucf.edu> wrote:
>
> On 06/12/2000, Tyler T. Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On 06/08/2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Think what would happen if Congress passed a law to allow a certain
> > > church to copyright all texts and translations of the Bible. How
> > > could setting up such a monopoly be justified under copyright law?
> >
> > Interestingly enough, Congress tried to do exactly that with Mary
> > Baker Eddy's "Science and Health," the basic text of the Christian
> > Science religion. The Church was concerned that various "polluted"
> > versions of the text were being disseminated by splinter groups, so
> > it got Congress to pass a law reviving and extending Eddy's copyright
> > for 75 years and assigning it solely to the trustees of the Church.
> > And, yes, the law was held invalid as a violation of the Establishment
> >
> > clause of the First Amendment. [The alternative argument, that the
> > law violated the "limited times" provision of the Copyright Clause,
> > was unfortunately never ruled upon; the ruling that the law was
> > invalid made such a ruling unnecessary.]
>
> What a fascinating story about Mary Baker Eddy. Couldn't a separation
> of powers argument be used there as well? Is there a ready source of
> the details of this case?

One such source is MARY BAKER EDDY'S CHURCH MANUAL, ed. Helen Wright, H.M. Wright Publishing Inc., Seattle 1981, which focuses on the tension between the terms of Mrs Eddy's will and the subsequent use of her work by various groups, each claiming to be the one true church, some having more legal support for their claim than others. Virtually all of the documentary evidence from the case itself is included, as well as the several opinions and orders that issued during the long battle. Interesting stuff.

Robert C. Cumbow
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