Vatican Radio given rights to audio recordings of Cardinal Ratzinger

Published: 2005-09-02

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has turned over author and intellectual property rights of all recordings of his voice prior to his being elected pontiff to Vatican Radio, the Vatican announced. Vatican Radio already has copyright authority over all the audio recordings of a pope. But the new provision extends that copyright authority to audio recordings made by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he was elected pope on April 19, said the Vatican Sept. 2 in a written statement. Pope Benedict turned over rights of authorship and economic rights of books he wrote before becoming pontiff to the Vatican's publishing house, "Libreria Editrice," in early June. English-language publishing rights remain with Ignatius Press of San Francisco. Third parties that have "already legitimately acquired" authors' rights from Cardinal Ratzinger are exempt from the provision, said the Vatican statement.

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