Nick Baty wrote:Of course in those days ICEL will have been a new body working with a new concept and was, doubtless, suspicious of everything and everybody.
No they weren't, they were just thugs, stealing other people's texts left, right and centre and pretending that they were their own. This was in part because they didn't have the same access to the Roman dicasteries as others did, and in part because they didn't always have the competence or (more often) the time to do their own work. There's a whole history waiting to be written about this some day. While they haven't been nearly as bad as that in recent times, occasionally the old habits seem to rear their ugly heads.
Nick Baty wrote:(By the way, who did the first translation into English (65/67?) – am I right in thinking ICEL's first attempt was the 1973 Missal? Or did they do the first one and then revise it?)
ICEL's first draft effort was the Roman Canon in 1965. Their first published effort was the 1969/70 Order of Mass, followed by the 1970 Holy Week rites, both incorporated into the 1973 Missal. The 1966 text for the Order of Mass that we used was produced by the National Liturgical Commission of England & Wales. The original prayers and antiphons of the Missal that we used were also done by the NLC, which is why Goodliffe Neale missalettes for years carried both NLC and ICEL translations of them.
Nick Baty wrote:However, I'm interested in the tale of your American publisher. Over here, nobody would be publishing a solus Sanctus but would be presenting a set of acclamations. "Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010 ICEL" is less specific in this case.
The American publisher is indeed publishing "suites" (as they call them) of eucharistic acclamations. The copyright acknowledgement dispute was in relation to the ICET Sanctus in those suites.
Nick Baty wrote:And isn't there a case for claiming copyright on a collection? Otherwise, how does the Holy See manage to claim copyright over the whole Missale Romanum when so much of it has been in the public domain for so long?
You're confusing compilation copyright with copyright over texts. The Holy See is just as interested in money as anyone else. They receive a royalty on all official liturgical books. When it comes to Latin originals from which translations are made, no one else gets a look-in! However, they're not doing this under a compilation copyright but a textual one. They say they "own" the Latin, even if it has been around for centuries.
