I wrote a bit about the issue with how the Church does copyright over on FrMatthewLC.com. The catechism and Church documents could be done a lot better.
The copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that my Community owns. I found no images of the Catechism searching for creative commons images (kind of meta given the post topic). So, I took this photo myself in front of our tree. I release this photo under CC BY-NC 3.0 FrMatthewLC.com. Maybe, it will be listed as one if someone else searches for a creative commons image of the Catechism.
Eight Years ago, Brandon Vogt had a long piece on how much trouble it is that the Catechism and NAB (Bible translation used at Mass) are so expensive, and how hard they are to distribute. I think he is mainly right but I suggest maybe one slight variation. This came up as an issue as people were talking about Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Catechism in a year. Someone noted how initiatives to read the catechism had been stifled in the past by rules around publishing it. […]
I think Vogt is generally right, but I would change two things that work together.
First, I would add a fourth thing often included in Creative Commons: Non-commercial in that you can’t use that content under creative commons to make money. This would mean you can’t sell the work without permission. (Jonathan Sullivan suggests similarly.)
Second, make an easy way for anyone who wants to print magisterial teachings and sell them to register with something like 5-10% of sales going to the USCCB or Vatican.
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