In the beginning was the Word. Now is the Copyright

Abstract

Since 2005 all Roman Pope's teaching is copyrighted. As the tenet of the Catholic Church is that of spreading the faith and teaching all the people, this seems at odds with any restriction of access. The Catholic Church, however, does not represent an exception, since the copyright is applied also in other religions. In this paper a simple model is presented in order to assess the possibility of rationalizing the exercize of the copyright by a religious organization. The analysis provides also more general indications about the working of the copyright, which seems to function more alike the right of drawing a tax than the right of setting a monopoly price, as currently thought.copyright, religion, royalties, taxation