Bible Knowledge Commentary: Where is It?

Yep, same here... this is one particular commentary that I read every single day and I actually bought the base package of Logos 4 specifically because it had the BKC available on the iPad?

Hope it hasn't been removed for good, anyone over there have any information about why this is no longer in the mobile library and when it might be put back on there.  There really isn't another commentary that is a whole bible commentary equivalent to this one that is also on the base package and available for the iPad/iPhone?

What about fair use?  We purchased these books but because of greed Logos and these so called Christian publishers are preventing us from using our books on the different devices that we have.

Frankly I'm getting sick and tired of Logos.  I finally bought the first Mac version just a month or so before they came out with 4.  I bought it because they promised to continue to develop it and bring it up to speed with the windows version, which I had.  Then they drop support for it to make us buy 4.  I bought 4 because they said that we'd have access to our books on the iphone but again after giving them my money they don't follow through on their promise.  BTW, I'm still not using 4 on my MBP because it's bloated, slow and all it does is hog resources because it's constantly indexing.

Windows users get free engine updates for life but those who choose the better platform get taken for life.

What about fair use?  We purchased these books but because of greed Logos and these so called Christian publishers are preventing us from using our books on the different devices that we have.

Frankly I'm getting sick and tired of Logos.  I finally bought the first Mac version just a month or so before they came out with 4.  I bought it because they promised to continue to develop it and bring it up to speed with the windows version, which I had.  Then they drop support for it to make us buy 4.  I bought 4 because they said that we'd have access to our books on the iphone but again after giving them my money they don't follow through on their promise.  BTW, I'm still not using 4 on my MBP because it's bloated, slow and all it does is hog resources because it's constantly indexing.

Windows users get free engine updates for life but those who choose the better platform get taken for life.

I think this is more than a little uncalled for.  If you are frustrated, that is fine...call Customer Support and see if they can resolve your complaints/issues.  Venting and making false accusations (greed; "so called Christian publishers"; dropping Mac support [?!]; etc) on a public board helps nobody and is technically libel.

My issue was really that this particular resource is a basic staple in bible study, and while there are some 10,000 or however many resources available for the iPad-iPhone, the BKC was the only one I used on a daily basis consistently, and if it wasn't listed in the mobile resources when I purchased the base package I may have waited a little longer to buy it (being on a Mac... though Logos has come a long way with the Mac platform, it gets better every week).

I will say, Logos is hardly to blame here (from what I can tell).  In most cases it seems that the publishers are the ones that hold the strings and make the final say yes or no, and apparently they can do that at any point along the way.

I contacted David C Cook Publishers and through many different conversations, no one could actually find out anything one way or the other, and it took quite a while before they even understood what I was talking about.  Someone over at DCC knows what's going on, but it must reside pretty high up.  I have also contacted customer service for Logos and most don't seem to understand or know anything either.  I finally got my answer from a twitter response from Logos that it was pulled by request of the publisher.

This is not something unique to Logos, or to DCC for that matter.  Look at what happened with the Kindle when Amazon seemingly arbitrarily decided to remove 1984 from everyone's Kindle.  It was publisher that made Amazon pull the book, not Amazon.  Look at the Beatles with iTunes, etc etc.

I presume someone at DCC required Logos to pull the BKC from the mobile platform.  The "greed" comment from the earlier post may have been uncalled for but you can bet money has something to do with it down the line somewhere.  In the world of digital media, we are all at the whim of the publishing companies, even those companies who provide them to us, like Logos, Amazon's Kindle, and Apple's iBooks seem to be at the mercy of the publishing companies?

What I don't care for is being the end user, we are caught in the middle.  We purchase a product with certain expectations and now, with digital media, we have to be ready for those expectations to be fluid and constantly changing.

When I talked to DCC, no one could ever find out why it was pulled.  They also told me they did not make the BKC available for the Kindle or iBooks on purpose, so something tells me if they didn't want it for either of those platforms, they changed their mind about the Logos version. 

I can't imagine the number of publishers that Logos has to deal with when looking at the number of resources they have available, it must be quite a job, and I am sure they do the best they can. Just my $.02.

I bought 4 because they said that we'd have access to our books on the iphone but again after giving them my money they don't follow through on their promise.

Logos makes it very clear that there is no guarantee that all your books will be able to be used with an iPad and/or an iPhone. Logos fervently tries to get the publishers to allow their books to be used on secondary devices, but it is outside of Logos' control to force a publisher to do this. It does seem unfair that Logos siad the BKC would be available and then it was taken down, but I think that is beyond Logos' control. The Holman Bible Handbook is the closest short, one-volume commentary I can find on my iPhone.

The Mac and PC engines are free to download and an upgrade to Logos 4 Mac or Logos 4 from earlier editions is free. The crossgrade is the one that costs a little, but more resources are included.

You might want to do a little more investigating before lambasting Logos.

I presume someone at DCC required Logos to pull the BKC from the mobile platform.  The "greed" comment from the earlier post may have been uncalled for but you can bet money has something to do with it down the line somewhere.

I was defending Logos more than DCC (who I know next to nothing about) because the "greed" comment lumped the two together.  It was his attack on Logos that I thought was uncalled for.

Anyone have an equivalent commentary they like that is also available on the iPad?

Scott, I have the following one-volume commentary on my iPhone:

Paschall, F. H., & Hobbs, H. H. (1972). The teacher's Bible commentary: A concise, thorough interpretation of the entire Bible designed especially for Sunday School teachers. Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers.

I don't use it (I use New Bible Commentary as my one-volume main commentary) so I am not able to say how good it is. May be somebody else can comment on that.

Thanks, yes, that is an alternative, I have that one too... didn't care for it quite as much as the BKC, but it is still available.  The other option was the 2 volume "Summary of the Old [and New] Testament" which actually has some very good info but it is VERY brief.

What about buying the New International Bible Commentary of F.F. Bruce? [:)]

It is available on the iPhone/iPad platform.

Interesting... that is a great commentary (i have it in physical book form) but it doesn't seem to be on my iPhone-iPad list, must not be included in the base package that I have I guess.  If it was that would be a great alternative for sure.

They say on the product page of NIBC that it is available in iPhone/iPad. I don't have it but it looks as a very good alternative IMHO.

EDIT: No, it is not part of any base package. I have a Platinum and don't have it. I wish I would.

I would like to add my voice to the feeling of frustration.  It is not with Logos, in fact I have found them more than fair.  It is more the whole problem of digital books.  I would think publishers would love digital books.  They do not have the whole process of printing books, storing books, etc.  What a saving (part of which should come to the end user - us).

It bugs me that there is not a way (or if there is one I do not know how to do it) to loan ebooks to a friend.  But it really frustrates me that I have to keep re-buying the same books just because I change my bookshelves.  I have bought BKC for both Logos and Olivetree (back when I had a Palm and before Logos 4 - in fact Logos 4 is one reason I am now with an iPad).  But now with BKC I can not even use it within the same system (Logos on the PC and iPad). 

I understand publishers have to protect themselves, but behavior like this is why some do not feel wrong to not follow all of the publisher rules.  I may be wrong, but I do think it is about money.

Kindle also pulled a book at the request of the publisher that people had paid for. It just disappeared from their Kindle. This is theft. If you bought a physical book at Barnes and Noble and later the publisher decided there was a breach of contract or some other problem with the book, no court in the country would allow them to go to your house and confiscate the book you bought, so why do they think they can get away with it electronically? Because it's so easy. There needs to be a class action suite over this to set the record and law straight about this legal theft. Electronic, illegal repo men?

When this happened last year we discussed a lot of these issues in this thread:

Do we own our books?
http://community.logos.com/forums/t/359.aspx

My take on it now is we are at the mercy of publishers to "do the right thing." Of course they will be the ones deciding what the "right thing" is. I don't think I will invest in a mobile device until the EULA locks in my rights to access the library without paying twice. Been there, done that with Z.

At the very least, refunds should be given for the books taken off of the iPhone/iPad.

For a refund to be given you would need to give up your right to use the resource on your PC / MAC also, that said  I don't disagree that there should be an option for a refund, and if iPhone/iPad was the only medium through which you used this resource then I would not hesitate to recommend giving Logos Customer service a call. Personally though I would think carefully through a refund request particulary if it was purchased on a prepub price.  In the future if you wanted to re-purchase then you would be paying full price.  Its a messy and frustrating situation that the publishers are creating by doing this sort of thing.

At the very least, refunds should be given for the books taken off of the iPhone/iPad.

For a refund to be given you would need to give up your right to use the resource on your PC / MAC also, that said  I don't disagree that there should be an option for a refund, and if iPhone/iPad was the only medium through which you used this resource then I would not hesitate to recommend giving Logos Customer service a call. Personally though I would think carefully through a refund request particulary if it was purchased on a prepub price.  In the future if you wanted to re-purchase then you would be paying full price.  Its a messy and frustrating situation that the publishers are creating by doing this sort of thing.

...and as addition to that, most people would have BKC as part of their base package. How Logos would do refund on this I have no idea. I think you would have to give up of the whole base package, what I would not recommend at all

Very good point!

When this happened last year we discussed a lot of these issues in this thread:

Do we own our books?
http://community.logos.com/forums/t/359.aspx

My take on it now is we are at the mercy of publishers to "do the right thing." Of course they will be the ones deciding what the "right thing" is. I don't think I will invest in a mobile device until the EULA locks in my rights to access the library without paying twice. Been there, done that with Z.

I am going to guess the answer hasn't changed at all... if we buy a book in paper, have it sitting in our house, for all tense and purpose, we own that book, if it is electronic, we do not, especially if that electronic book resides in the cloud like those on the iPhone/iPad apps.

The "right thing to do" would be to allow those customers who have purchased certain expectations (since we can't say purchased certain books) that those expectations remain in tact.  If a publisher "changes their mind" afterwards, then it should be changed for those customer from that point forward.  There are a few reasons I am guessing this doesn't happen.  One, it is so easy to yank from all and appease the publisher, two, to allow some people access to the BKC on iPad and others not is a programming issues companies probably don't want to deal with, and three, the end user has no say or power to do anything about it (other than just not to buy the product).

I see this type of thing getting worse and worse for people who "own" a Kindle, or iBooks, or any electronic form of books until some end user sues a publisher and or provider.  Most people don't care that much about one single book, so I don't see that happening any time soon.  

I for one, do care that much about one single book like the BKC because it was the base commentary for my daily study, on my iPad, and even though I love Logos and all that they have done and continue to do, as was mentioned above, when this happened I requested a refund on my entire base package.  There was nothing else as a consumer that I could do.  

No one would listen, no one had any idea what I was talking about (either publisher or provider), so I could either sit around and complain about it or not buy in anymore (or at least for now).  I am sure I will revisit a base package again some day, but for now, it was the BKC on the iPad that was one of the main reasons I went with a new Logos 4 base package.

Scott, I am sorry to hear that, however I fully understand. BKC used to be my main one-volume (actually 2 volume) commentary the first 20 years of my ministry.  What if you would ask Logos, instead of having refund for the base package, they would give you a really (I mean really) good discount for the NIBC? Would that change your mind? Just giving Logos some hint... [:)]

EDIT: I just want to make clear I understand the situation has not been created by Logos but by the publisher so Logos is not obligated to do anything in that, but still, it would be great to find some solution. That's IMHO.

Scott, I am sorry to hear that, however I fully understand. BKC used to be my main one-volume (actually 2 volume) commentary the first 20 years of my ministry.  What if you would ask Logos, instead of having refund for the base package, they would give you a really (I mean really) good discount for the NIBC? Would that change your mind? Just giving Logos some hint...

EDIT: I just want to make clear I understand the situation has not been created by Logos but by the publisher so Logos is not obligated to do anything in that, but still, it would be great to find some solution. That's IMHO.

Thanks for the suggestion, that's a great idea, but I doubt Logos would go for that, but still, I can get that commentary on its own without a base package, so that is also an option.  I'm not a big fan of serious study using the NIV but I love Bruce's work, and I can get it for $25, which seems to be available on my iPad as well (for now).

I don't think we can remove Logos 100% from the equation (or at least the people in the publisher correspondence department, although I acknowledge that has to be an enormous job).  If I was to purchase the NIBC as an individual book right now, there is nothing at all that stops them later down the line from doing the exact same thing, even if it is the fault of the publisher.  I can grab that particular volume on Amazon (new) right now for about $3.00, and be fairly sure that unless my house burns down, I will get to keep that volume.  Not so with the electronic NIBC.  

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE access to the electronic versions, I am not a paper book only person, but not actually "owning" the book, per sa, is troubling for many reasons.  Thanks for the suggestion.