I got some questions for any copyright law gurus out there. Legally you can quote from other peoples works so long as you don't do it excessively. How much is too much btw? Can you quote another person's entire book if you are providing a commentary for each part?

This leads to the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions. Jerald & Sandra Tanner were sued and lost because they provided it online. (or was it just a part of it?) Can you not quote sections from it without getting sued by the church?

I'm curious also about the Book of Mormon. Who has copyright to it, if at all and are there multiple copyrights depending of the versions put out? What makes a certain version able to be copyrighted? Isn't it public domain now? If someone wanted to publish their own "version" of the Book of Mormon, what would they have to do?

The endowment ceremony has been quoted verbatim many times online and in books. However I am not aware of ANYONE secretly filming it and distributing the video or posting it online. Does anyone know why this is? Why has no one done this? It seems like it would a be major public disaster for the Morg if a visual recording of the endowment ceremony were ever to go viral. I've always worried though that the Morg will change it (again) and the previous version(s) will never see the light of day and will become just more "anti-Mormon lies" for the next generation. Is there some kind of copyright to it and if so, how? Doesn't there need to be some kind recording and/or transcript provided that is registered with the US Copyright Office. And if so, are they able to keep it private so that no one can view it?

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm a newspaper editor, so I am familiar with U.S. Copyright law.

In the U.S. anyone can copyright almost anything. Individuals have rights to it for life plus 70 years. Unless it's stated otherwise, it's safest to assume that absolutely everything published ore released is copyright protected until 70 years after the last author dies, unless otherwise stated. In the case of church materials, many fall into another category that gives a copyright lasting 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation, whichever is shorter. The creator of the work doesn't even have to expressly print a copyright notice. Nor is registration with the U.S. Copyright Office required.

This second kind of copyright (95-120 years) is generally what is applied to church manuals and official materials, including the temple movie. Because of international treaties, U.S. Copyright extends to a lot of other countries.

Remember, Joe Smith didn't invent the endowment -- it's largely lifted from Masonic rituals. Copyright might not even apply to the ceremony itself for that reason. But copyright does apply to the portrayal, that is, the film or live performance. The act of creating a bootleg copy of the endowment would probably involve criminal activity beyond copyright, like privacy violations, trespassing and maybe fraud -- all of these vary based on jurisdiction. TSCC's attorneys would surely get creative on this one.

What is permissible is "fair use" -- using a portion of a published work within another. Fair use is what allows short tracts to be used in scholarly works, for instance. The U.S Copyright office has a page on the subject at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

The Fair Use Doctrine is what allows us to quote parts of the CHI or the endowment on this board. We're not reproducing the original work, and we give lots of attribution, because it helps other readers to find the original source and read it in its full context.

The Book of Mormon and all its revisions are in public domain. You can reprint the book in its entirety without repercussions. The same is true for the, D&C and PoGP. Any copyrights LDSinc had on these would have expired as early as 1925.

Hope this helps.