When you are looking for opinions: There are no gods. The fact that gods don't exist, is no reason to have faith. You have faith in things you believe in them, even if you cannot prove their existence. If you don't think, gods exist, you are an atheist like me. Welcome to the club. It is nice here.

As others pointed out, the texts that landed in todays bible variants are hundrets to thousands of years old. Nobody can claim a copyright for that stuff. Just for recent translations.

A particular Bible translation made in something like the last hundred years might be copyrighted. Outside of that, it's public domain.

It's also possible for a newer translation to be put into the public domain by the translator.

The number of assholes falsely claiming copyright on public-domain stuff is too damn high!

If any, the copyright applies to a translation, not the text as such. You can always take either an older version of a translation or take the original text and work with those.

Copyrights don't last perpetually, and the bible is old enough to be public domain. Newer translations and editions can be under copyright but the underlying work is public domain.

Copyright purportedly exists to promote the sciences and useful arts. Historical scholarship, and the research into old manuscripts in making a new edition of any old work does have value, and does entitle you to a copyright. However, scholarly editions generally have a shorter term than original works.

The bible is public domain, but there are copyrighted editions. The same can be said for most historical works of note. There are copyrighted editions of Beethoven's symphonies, Shakespeare's plays, and Arthur Conan Doyle's books, despite the original works being public domain.

I don't think copyrights are evidence for or against the existence of any god, or the validity of any religion. The fact that there are copyrighted editions means there is interest in studying the texts, which is true for every extant religion.

KJV is public domain. And you won't get in trouble for pirating the NIV.

edit: on second thought, consider using a vpn when pirating anything.

Copyright doesn’t make faith useless or disprove God. Textual criticism, archaeology, and science do that far more thoroughly.

P.S. Bibles are copyrighted simply because publishers want to protect their editions. A lot of time and effort goes into it. Source texts and older translations aren't copyright and are freely available from a number of sources.

Forget about God for a while, and drink a beer in the shower. You'll feel better.

there are reasons for it, and there are versions of the bible in public domain. you can decide if those reasons are right for yourself example.

Look into the Gideons. I don't agree with all their philosophy obviously, but they're like the Open Source/Open Knowledge group of the Christian faith.

One of their main things is that they think since the Bible is the word of God, and people deserve to be saved, that it's their job to ensure everyone gets a fair shake at access to a Bible without having to pay for it. You used to always be able to find a Bible in a hotel thanks to them, and they're often at public gatherings handing out copies as well.

I'm not religious, and I don't agree with much of what they believe, but I do think that is an appropriate way to view the situation, that it should be freely available to all instead of essentially locked behind a paywall.

Pretty sure the copyright on the KJV, which is obviously the best version, has expired by now.