In order for local churches in minority languages to translate from a major-language Bible, they have to first get permission from and perhaps pay the publisher that copyrighted the version they want to use. This spring, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association shut down an Australian website that was offering more than 50 free Bible translations.
“Copyright issues are one of the greatest remaining challenges we have,” said Greg Pruett, president of Pioneer Bible Translators (PBT). Many of the minority languages are related to nearby major languages, which leads to questions of whether minority translations are derivatives of someone else’s intellectual property.
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