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RUSH TO PRESS SPECIAL EDITION -- April 13, 2016 |
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ECPA Stops Infringement of Bible Translations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Stan Jantz, executive director, ECPA, sjantz@ecpa.org 480-966-3998 Brian Flagler, managing partner, Flagler Law Group, brian@flaglerlawgroup.com, 541-549-8401
April 13, 2016 – Phoenix, AZ -- An ECPA-led group of publishers successfully stopped the infringement of more than 50 Bible translations by an Australian website. ECPA contacted the website www.churchsw.org in December 2015 to notify the owner that he was violating copyright and unfair competition laws by making unauthorized Bible translations available for download. During the next two months, the owner removed all unauthorized Bible translations from his websites and entered into a settlement agreement whereby he agreed that he had removed all infringing Bible translations and that he would not infringe any work to which an ECPA member owns or controls rights.
Part of ECPA’s correspondence with the owner included a copy of the judgment obtained by ECPA members from an English court in 2008 against the proprietors of www.biblecentre.net. That case prevented numerous ECPA member copyrighted works from being offered illegally and resulted in legal sanctions against the perpetrator. ECPA also worked with authorities in Nigeria in recent years to combat an increase in the number of pirated Christian books being imported into that country.
“This case in Australia, along with the cases we faced in England and Nigeria, represents the value of working concertedly as an industry to protect the intellectual property of ECPA members,” explains ECPA executive director Stan Jantz. “We appreciate all that Flagler Law Group did to lead this effort on behalf of our Association and the special efforts of Tyndale House, HarperCollins Christian Publishers, and American Bible Society to halt the infringement of many valuable Bible translations.”
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The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is an international non-profit trade organization, comprised of nearly 200 member companies worldwide, representing a combined revenue of nearly $1.4 billion. Since 1974, ECPA has strengthened Christian publishing by building Networking, Information, and Advocacy opportunities within the industry and across multiple channels so that our members can more effectively produce and deliver transformational Christian content. For more information about ECPA: 480-966-3998, info@ecpa.org, ECPA.org.
Flagler Law Group exists to serve the legal needs of Christian publishing organizations by leveraging focused expertise into practical solutions. Brian Flagler founded Flagler Law Group in the spring of 2006 to serve the legal needs of publishers, designers, producers, and distributors of Christian media. With a combined 35+ years in the industry, we know Christian publishing. We believe that our experience handling matters for a diverse variety of Christian publishers, ministries, and other organizations from the publishing perspective significantly contributes to the value that we offer our clients. For more information, contact brian@flaglerlawgroup.com, or 541-549-8401, FlaglerLawGroup.com. |
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