Tech Forum

Hello,

I am wanting to make a game (maybe someday a free app/game in an app store), called "Name that Prophet" or "Name that Leader", similar to "Name that Tune" except instead of tunes it will play parts of a talk given by that person in General Conference or something... since the talks are under copyright, is there something that I need to do? Like some sort of permission request for access to the talks? The program/app would be free so I wouldn't be making any profit off of it, if that makes any difference...

Thanks,
Jacob Hornbeck

Curious idea. The church has had only 17 prophets, with only 14 of them having sound recordings. Wilford Woodruff being the first. I'd imagine the recording quality would narrow it down some more. (Wax cylinder being a dead giveaway it's not a recent one.)

But to be safe, I'd follow the links on the Terms of Use page.

I like the game idea!

When it comes to copyright and permissions for the audio, it makes a difference if the audio files are hosted on your own server, vs. on the Church's server. My personal interpretation of current United States copyright laws is that, as long as you're linking to the audio files instead of hosting them yourself, there's no copyright infringement. See this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ... nd_framing

In HTML, you can use the <audio> tag to link to an audio file on the Church's server (similar to the <img> tag described in the link above), and you can use JavaScript to control how many seconds into the audio playback starts and ends.

Simple indexes (list of talks and names of speakers) are also not copyrightable, but full text of a talk would be.

If you plan to host the audio files yourself, or if you plan to include text of the talks, etc., you will need to get permission from Permissions.ChurchofJesusChrist.org

sbradshaw wrote:When it comes to copyright and permissions for the audio, it makes a difference if the audio files are hosted on your own server, vs. on the Church's server. My personal interpretation of current United States copyright laws is that, as long as you're linking to the audio files instead of hosting them yourself, there's no copyright infringement. See this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ... nd_framing

This isn't a clear-cut case of linking. I would make sure to have a discussion with the Church intellectual property office.

In my experience, the Church IP office doesn't usually provide guidance to Church members on how to apply copyright laws (they might provide that service to employees or general authorities, but not to members working on private projects).

One should avoid distributing the content. That will get you in trouble right quick unless permission is given.

One strategy that should be looked into is distributing a tool to allow the end users to download the needed clips from the church for their own use. I believe that has worked in the past.

Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not a lawyer, I can't speak for the church, this is just my personal option, I didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn last night, etc.

scgallafent wrote:

sbradshaw wrote:When it comes to copyright and permissions for the audio, it makes a difference if the audio files are hosted on your own server, vs. on the Church's server. My personal interpretation of current United States copyright laws is that, as long as you're linking to the audio files instead of hosting them yourself, there's no copyright infringement. See this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ... nd_framing

This isn't a clear-cut case of linking. I would make sure to have a discussion with the Church intellectual property office.

How would I get in contact with them?... I was looking around, trying to find the best place to contact the Church about this, but this was the only place that I found...

russellhltn wrote:Curious idea. The church has had only 17 prophets, with only 14 of them having sound recordings. Wilford Woodruff being the first. I'd imagine the recording quality would narrow it down some more. (Wax cylinder being a dead giveaway it's not a recent one.)

But to be safe, I'd follow the links on the Terms of Use page.

Yeah, that's why I was thinking about doing "Name that Leader" so it could be nearly any of the general authorities... that would be almost boring if it was only the Prophets...

sbradshaw wrote:In my experience, the Church IP office doesn't usually provide guidance to Church members on how to apply copyright laws (they might provide that service to employees or general authorities, but not to members working on private projects).

The Church IP office isn't going to provide guidance to Church members, but the content he is asking about is Church content. Except for some very old recordings that have moved to public domain, the Church IP office is responsible for the copyright on those recordings. IF permission is going to be granted, it would be obtained from IP.

Jaycubee wrote:

scgallafent wrote:

sbradshaw wrote:When it comes to copyright and permissions for the audio, it makes a difference if the audio files are hosted on your own server, vs. on the Church's server. My personal interpretation of current United States copyright laws is that, as long as you're linking to the audio files instead of hosting them yourself, there's no copyright infringement. See this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ... nd_framing

This isn't a clear-cut case of linking. I would make sure to have a discussion with the Church intellectual property office.

How would I get in contact with them?... I was looking around, trying to find the best place to contact the Church about this, but this was the only place that I found...

It is on the terms of use page.
"For further assistance or information regarding Church trademarks and copyrighted materials, you may contact the Church's Intellectual Property Office at ..."