The Book of Common Prayer
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    A Note About Copyrights

 

I often receive email asking if such-and-such a Prayer Book is online. Usually the reason it is not is because it is under copyright and so may not be placed online without the copyright holder's permission. I do not have any such texts here, nor will I knowingly link to any such text placed online. Some of the texts which you may like to see here, but which aren't here because of copyright reasons include:

  • Enriching Our Worship (EOW 1 is online from Church Publishing; other volumes available there as well) 
  • The 1979 U. S. Book of Common Prayer in French (online from Church Publishing) or Spanish (online from the Episcopal Church)
  • A Prayer Book for Australia
  • A New Zealand Prayer Book (online from the Anglican Church of NZ)
  • The Canadian Book of Alternative Services (online from the Anglican Church of Canada)
  • Common Worship (online from the Church of England)

While it is commonly understood that all books published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, copyright notice or no, it is not so commonly known that many texts published after that date are also in the public domain. Under U. S. copyright law, any book published between 1923 and 1977 with no copyright notice is in the public domain. Also, if the book was published in the US with a copyright notice between 1923 and 1963 but that copyright was not renewed, it is in the public domain. It can generally be assumed (with some exceptions) that anything published in the U. S. under copyright after 1963 is still under copyright - see the Hirtle Chart for more detail.

 

 

Web author: Charles Wohlers U. S.EnglandScotlandIrelandWalesCanadaWorld