Faith Life Study Bible App - ESV not free? But available free on Faithlife.com

I was testing FaithLife App on Android with Proclaim. I had previously tested FaithLife.com and found it will be incredibly useful as a church. The problem we have is this. Users can signup for a FaithLife.com account and gain access to a number of key books and bible versions including ESV Bible. We have discovered however that when they login to the Faith Life Study Bible App they can no longer access ESV and we also found that there is a $10 (£6.50) license fee per users to use ESV. As a church we use the ESV and so obviously would like to use that within the App. The problem we face is this inconsistency and also the fact that the congregation can download the ESV for free outside of the App. As you will appreciate the church congregation will be wondering why they need to pay £6.50 ($10) for it.

Is there any way around this issue? What is the "license" fee for? If a fee has to be paid is there any way we can organise a bulk price? I know it doesn't seem much but we have 60% of our congregation under the age of 30 and only 30% of the congregation are in paid work. Being based in Hackney, London which is the most deprived borough in the UK we have to make every penny work and avoid cost where we can. Any thing you can do to help us therefore would be greatly appreciated. Of course if the cost truly cannot be avoided can you explain the full benefits gained by the payment?

Thank you for your consideration of this and I look forward to understanding better the reasons behind this and even hopeful for a low cost way to roll out the ESV for our congregation using the Faith Life App.

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Comments

Graham Criddle

Hi Stephen.

in general, Logos provide access to "free resources" when people create an account. most of these resources are only available when online (i.e, when accessed over the Internet) due to licensing restrictions.

to download them to a device requires a purchase which, as you say, is $10 in the case of the ESV.

So I would have expected your congregation to see the ESV from within the Faithlife app but that they would need to pay if they wanted to download it.

is this consistent with what you are seeing?

Logos would need to comment on any bulk options, but the general licensing model is on a per-individual basis. For any variation on this I suggest you contact Logos sales directly.

Graham

Stephen Challen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547872#Comment_547872

Graham

Are you viewing the use of ESV on the Faith Life App as a downloaded version? The ESV in this scenario cannot be used outside of the App so does not seem to be a download to me.

I can go and download the ESV to my phone free of charge outside of the Logos.com system but then I cannot use the proclaim links to open my mobile for me nor can I use it alongside my Faith Life study bible.

It just seems very odd and inconsistant for what is principally a free digital bible.

I will email someone in the Sales team at Logos.com but I found on some issues the forum has derived answers that the sales team could not on other issues. I will try them on this one.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547881#Comment_547881

Hi Stephen

Are you viewing the use of ESV on the Faith Life App as a downloaded version? The ESV in this scenario cannot be used outside of the App so does not seem to be a download to me.

It depends - you should be able to access it "online" but if you try and download it (which is a function in the app) then a purchase will be needed.

I'm afraid I can't check (I access the resource through an account where I have purchased it) but can you check whether you see the ESV in the Library window in the app? If so, then it should be readable from within the app - just not downloadable to the device

I can go and download the ESV to my phone free of charge outside of the Logos.com system but then I cannot use the proclaim links to open my mobile for me nor can I use it alongside my Faith Life study bible.

Understood

It just seems very odd and inconsistant for what is principally a free digital bible.

As above, I think it should be free to access - not to download.

I will email someone in the Sales team at Logos.com but I found on some issues the forum has derived answers that the sales team could not on other issues. I will try them on this one.

For technical questions the forums are great. For variations on pricing you need to talk with Sales.

Graham

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547885#Comment_547885

In addution to what Graham said:

The ESV is not a free digital bible in the sense some other translations are - and while a publisher may choose not to ask for a fee on a certain platform or for some time (I think there was a free ESV offer for Faithlife once, and a free NIV offer as well, IIRC), this does not mean the bible is free everywhere and in every different edition.

Logos produced the Lexham English Bible (LEB) which comes for free and is part of the Faithlife package, thus I would recommend checking it out, since it's the least hassle for people who simply want to use Faithlife without much ado.

That said, there is a standing offer to obtain the ESV plus additional material for free, provided some conditions are met, see http://wiki.logos.com/free_logos_books Crossway section.

Hope this helps a bit,

Mick

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547896#Comment_547896

The ESV is not a free digital bible in the sense some other translations are - and while a publisher may choose not to ask for a fee on a certain platform or for some time (I think there was a free ESV offer for Faithlife once, and a free NIV offer as well, IIRC), this does not mean the bible is free everywhere and in every different edition.

Dave Dunkin provided some good clarification on this at http://community.logos.com/forums/p/78215/547894.aspx#547894

Stephen Challen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547896#Comment_547896

I may have worded my self poorly. If you pick up any phone and go to the app store you will find you can download the ESV free of charge. To this extent everyone we speak to saying "hey you can use this FaithLife app to follow the service but it will cost you $10 to add the ESV", the reply returns "but I've got a free ESV bible on my phone already why do I need to pay $10?" or "I just signed up for FaithLife.com why does FaithLife App not use the same facilities?"

I think these are justified questions from the average person in the pew.

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547947#Comment_547947

I think these are justified questions from the average person in the pew.

I understand the logic of your hypothetical pew person. However, copyright law is technical, and does not always follow this type of common sense. IMHO, Crossway is quite "liberal" with granting rights to the ESV text. It seems easier to get rights to it than most of its competitors, anyway (eg. NRSV, NASV, NIV, NKJV)

I do hope that Logos works out a way for group licensing of resources though. That could be so useful for something like Faithlife.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547947#Comment_547947

If you pick up any phone and go to the app store you will find you can download the ESV free of charge. To this extent everyone we speak to saying "hey you can use this FaithLife app to follow the service but it will cost you $10 to add the ESV", the reply returns "but I've got a free ESV bible on my phone already why do I need to pay $10?"

Stephen,

but the point is: in bible software you will need a bible text that is heavily tagged. It's much more than just what people can read someplace on the web - thus we usually have to pay even for PD works in Logos (but have you ever tried to actually use the OCR results you find at e.g. archive.org? ) The Crossway guys may give away the Kindle edition of ESV in the hope to sell paper copies down the road, but they are in a different position than Logos.

If you want it in Faithlife, available for the foreseeable future and free, go for LEB (or KJV...)

Rich Tatum (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547947#Comment_547947

As others have noted, the licensing of copyrighted materials can get complicated quickly, which is why publishing houses like Crossway have at least one person (and maybe a team) dedicated to managing revenues generated by licensing deals.

Since Crossway owns the rights to the ESV, it is Crossway who decides under what conditions they accept money for use of their text, and how much they want for each usage. A few months ago, we worked with Crossway to promote the ESV, and users were able to download the Faithlife Bible app along with the ESV for a limited time. Once that promotion ended, though, the cost of the ESV license went back to it's normal $10 price point. At this point, if we give away ESV downloads via the Faithlife Bible app, we would still be on the hook to Crossway for each licensed copy that is downloaded.

In some cases, Crossway may have decided to generously donate ESV licenses to some online portal, or to some mobile app maker, but what's usually happening is that the online portal or app maker is paying a sizeable fee to make license ESV (and other versions), making it available to their users.

Unfortunately, even in the world of Bible translations, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even with the public domain versions of the text, time, money, and resources are required to making them available to users, whether via the Logos Bible Software, Biblia.com, the Faithlife website, the Faithlife App, or Vyrso.

Regards

Rich

Stephen Challen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/547976#Comment_547976

Ken, Thanks for the comments. I am listening

With the NIV, NKJV etc charging normally that makes explaining to the average person much easier. As you will note we're not against paying but needing to find an explanation we give to what the charge covers. I find pre-empting problems is always best

A bulk discount or the provision of a discount link we can give to people (which maybe the church itself pays for) would be really helpful.

I really want to get everyone on board and it seems that the two teams in Logos were not aware that Faithlife.com and Faithlife App didn't have the same utilities. I think this inconsistency is probably my envisaged stumbling block

We will be looking to forge forward and encourage people to pay Logos for the ESV but we had hoped that all the investment we'd just made had allowed for a much easier integration of all the Logos facilities.

Stephen Challen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/548014#Comment_548014

NB.Mick

Thanks for the comments. I've just recently begun to explore the various facilities and maybe an investment in the ESV Bible on my test user would help me understand better what the money does provide. May be I jumped at the inconsistency I saw and panicked I should analyse more deeply the benefits and build a case for the justification of the fee.

I have not been trying to criticise Logos but rather gain better understanding as quickly as possible. I have just joined the leadership team and was given the task of roll out over quite a short time period. Unfortunately I'm still working elsewhere and my wife is having an operation this week on her brain and just trying to fit in too much

You have however helped me focus my thoughts on what the benefits are likely to be. As with everything it is how we will sell the ideas to people that gains the best results. I've found the Logos sales literature very wordy and complex and doesn't list the key sale points we would want to present to the congregation in the short term without getting to complicated too quickly.

So thanks again.

Stephen Challen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/548114#Comment_548114

Rich

Thanks for your reply. Do you know when the ESV will next be offered for free as the promotion you described? Assuming these are rare occasions I am trying to work on the basis of norms.

If you happen to have a list of key benefits that your App provides with the ESV which is not able to be done elsewhere that would be really helpful. I think overall the shock was as mentioned the inconsistency between the two locations in what to the end users sounds like the same facility but different interface (e.g. FaithLife.com & Faith Life App).

I will need to sell them to the congregation in concept as different and unconnected facilities (despite using the same signup, username and password).

I am slowly trying to get my head around how the system really works rather than the impression given to me by the sale literature and the expectation that church had based on their understanding of the offering.

I am confident it will all work out okay but how I explain it I think will be critical in the wide acceptance of the utilities. We really want the entire church to use the facilities rather than the odd person.

We will be establishing a training program for the congregation and so this should allow us to explain the benefits and slowly move everyone onto the system. I think I was over zealous and hoped based on the FaithLife.com offering that we could move much quicker and smoothly to our ultimate destination.

Milford Charles Murray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/548185#Comment_548185

Peace, Stephen! Please also take a good hard look at the free Lexham English Bible!

It is truly an excellent translation; and it is free!

Also interlinear! *smile*

https://www.logos.com/product/6162/lexham-english-bible

Edit:

It could very well be for you a good addition for the ESV and/or a great substitute ... at least for now as you get your programme underway ........ I can see where you have to "think outside the box," eh???!!!!