Christian urban myth: Authorized Version and Copyrights

One Christian urban myth promulgated by people on “our side” (defense and support of the King James Bible) goes something like this:

Modern English translations are corrupt (financially and linguistically) because they are copyrighted; the King James Bible is pure (financially and linguistically) because it is not copyrighted.

Peter Ruckman may be the primary or original source for this misinformation. As early as 1964 he wrote:

“The King James Bible is the only Bible in the world that anyone can reproduce, print, or copy without consulting anyone but God. All other ‘bibles,’ without exception, are copyrighted COMPETITORS whose motive was to destroy the A.V.” (The Bible Babel, Pensacola, FL: Pensacola Bible Press, 1964)

Leaving the issues of modern translations, corruption, and purity, I wish to address the often-touted myth that the King James Bible is not copyrighted. This contains a mixture of truth and error. In the United States of America and many (most? all?) other countries, the King James or Authorized Version is not and cannot be copyrighted. It is in the “public domain.” Anyone can print and publish a King James Bible. However, the same is not true in the United Kingdom. While “copyright” may not be the correct terminology to refer to English law in this regard, the King James or Authorised Version is protected in that Kingdom. A Cambridge Bibles page explains it this way:

“Rights in The Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Bible) in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown and administered by the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.”

Unlike Americans, New Zealanders, and others who quote the KJV with abandon, writers in the United Kingdom need permission to quote the text in commercial publications. Here are some of the restrictions/requirements:

• Reproduction of the scripture text is permitted to a maximum of five hundred (500) verses for liturgical and non-commercial educational use.
• Scripture quotations in materials not being made available for sale (such as church bulletins, orders of service, posters, presentation materials, or similar media) do not require a complete copyright notice but must include the initials “KJV” at the end of the quotation.
• If the verses quoted amount to a complete book of the Bible or represent 25 per cent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted, the following acknowledgement must be included:

• “Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.”

• Scripture quotations that exceed the above general guidelines require permission granted in writing from the Crown’s patentee.

Oxford University, as well as Cambridge, has the right to print the KJV. In “A Short History of Oxford University Press” they explain:

“The University also established its right to print the King James Authorized Version of the Bible in the seventeenth century. This Bible Privilege formed the basis of OUP's publishing activities throughout the next two centuries.”

Theodore P. Letis, a supporter of the TR and KJV, wrote:

“This Bible had the Cum Privilegio (‘with privilege’) printed on it, which meant that the Crown of England, as the official head of the state church, held the copyright to this Bible, giving permission only to those printers which the Crown had chosen.” (Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptists, Institute for Reformation Biblical Studies, 1992)

Daniel Stride offers this explanation of “copyright.”

The King James Bible isn’t conventionally copyrighted, in the way many of us think of copyrights. The work actually predates the concept of copyright by nearly a century (copyright started with the Statute of Anne in 1710). What you’re actually seeing is a unique, and thoroughly antiquated, publishing monopoly that functions as a copyright by other means.

Statements about the King James and copyright are not as cut-and-dried as some folks suppose. There exists a lot of misinformation about the KJV and copyrights. Whether spread by supporters or detractors of the KJV, what is wrong is wrong. Often sincere folks repeat information that they have read and believe because they trust the source. Many other folks ought to know better. If and when they know better, they ought to do better!

[Note 1: it is likely that some folks who are not King James defenders also share this misconception about the King James and copyright.]

[Note 2: there are some other English Bibles available without copyright restrictions (e.g., American Standard Version, The (Noah) Webster Bible, World English Bible). This is not an endorsement of them, but simply recognition of a fact.]

Further reading:

• “Enforcement of Copyright in the Bible and Religious Works,” (Roger Syn, Regent University Law Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2001–2002).
• “The King James Copyright: A Look at the Originality of Derivative Translations of the King James Version of the Bible,” (Jason L. Cohn, Journal of Intellectual Property Law, Volume 12, Issue 2, Article 6, April 2005)