Update on the Grail Psalter

Many readers have written for an update on the controversy over the Revised Grail Psalter, as detailed in these posts.

The issue concerns its policies for publishing the Psalms - concerning permissions, royalties, digital distribution, and other matters. It matters because the Revised Grail has been approved by the USCCB for (exclusive?) use in liturgy, a document for which GIA (a for-profit company that is fiercely proprietary in its copyright claims) is now administering all rights. So all Catholics have an interest in the terms of use; it is the people in the pews who are ultimately stuck with the bill. There is also the very obvious conflict of interest to consider as regards permissions for other publishers.

GIA first began to receive questions in November of 2008. Ironically, one of the questioning parties is the Conception Abbey itself - the source of the translation! To date, GIA has answered no questions. They have further asked Conception to forward all questions to the GIA. Questioners are in turn told that there is no public position on these matters.

There are no further updates.

It strikes me that these sorts of questions are the ones that the USCCB should have asked before approving the Revised Grail Psalter.