The Patry Copyright Blog: Copyright and Religion

The Patry Copyright Blog: Copyright and Religion
Religion has been raised in other copyright contexts. In Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Inc. v. Otsar Sifrei Lubavitch, Inc., 312 F.3d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 2002), another dispute among followers of a deceased (at least to some) religious leader led to a dispute over copyright in a translation of the Lubavitchers' siddur (prayerbook). The translation certainly was not for necessary for regular Chabad members whose Hebrew is quite excellent, but rather for non-Chabad members who have not regularly attended services. The Second Circuit held that "the translation process requires exercise of careful literary and scholarly judgment." As a collector of siddurim, I can vouch for this. There also was a challenge to the court's authority to hear the dispute, since a religious court (bet din) had made a determination, but binding on only one of the parties. The court noted that both parties were corporations, and that the federal judiciary could apply netural secular law (the Copyright Act) to resolve the dispute, thereby not trampling on religious territory.