Why does the Bible have a copyright and what does that mean? In order to answer that question we first have to know what a copyright is. According to Oxford Languages, a copyright is "the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same." So if the Bible is written by God, how could Zondervan hold the copyright and restrict the printing, copying and distribution of the Bible?
The answer is that nobody owns the copyright to the Bible. They may own the copyright of a certain Bible translation (in Zondervan's case they own the copyright to the NIV translation), but they do not own the copyright to the Bible itself. It takes time, effort and money to translate the Bible. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Most people today can not read those languages, so it is translated into different languages or "translations". There may be various translations in one single language. For example; both the ESV and the NIV are in the modern day english language. The idea of copyrighting a translation is to allow the translators to be compensated for their time, money and effort that it took them to translate the Bible. No one else can sell or reproduce their translation without first getting their permission (which usually means a payment of some type). You can certainly give away a hard copy (book) of the Bible that you have already paid for. You can not however scan, photograph or type out a copy of their translation and give it away. This would be a violation of their copyright.
The next question then becomes, is it Biblical to own the copyright of a Bible Translation? Are we following the Biblical principles that are taught in the Bible if we restrict the distribution of God's Word in any way shape or form? This is where I think we go wrong. While I certainly think the translators should be compensated for their work, I feel very strongly that it is against the principles of the Bible to withhold the Word of God from anyone and for any reason! See my page on King James Only for more detail. People need to hear and read the Word of God in their own language that they can understand. If a copyright is preventing that from happening, then it is violating the principles of the Bible (Leviticus 19:9-18, Mark 12:30-31, Matthew 28:19, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
So can the translators and publishers of the Bible translations still be compensated for their work, money and efforts if we allow people to copy and distribute the Bible freely? The answer is certainly "Yes". This is already happening with the King James Version. It is widly published and sold, but no one owns the copyright. It is in Public Domain, although technically the king or queen of England owns the copyright to it. The Open Source Software movement has developed a solution for this kind of problem. In the case where someone (or a group of people) have put in work that benifits everyone how do we give credit where credit is due, but still allow the free distrobution of the work? The answer is simple. Let everyone give away or even sell the work all they want, with one stipulation. That stipulation is that you have to include with the work the information of who created the work. The original translators could still publish their work for money and get compensated. At the same time, I could take thousands of electronic copies of their work and smuggle them into countries where the Word of God is not allowed.