Obtain permission to bundle Brazilian Portuguese NVI for offline use

[vmrocha]

Goal

Determine whether Bible Terminal can legally bundle the complete Brazilian Portuguese Nova Versão Internacional (NVI) for offline reading and search, and obtain written permission before any NVI text is acquired, imported, committed, or distributed.

This is a focused licensing workstream under #14.

Context

The Brazilian NVI would provide a familiar, contemporary pt-BR reading experience. However, it is copyrighted and is not covered by ordinary quotation permissions for a complete offline Bible.

Biblica's published permissions guidance says that uses beyond its quotation limits require written permission and that licenses for a full Bible or complete New Testament are granted only to registered legal entities:

• https://www.biblica.com/permissions/
• https://www.biblica.com/permission-request-form/
• https://www.biblica.com/terms-of-use/

Treat written authorization as a hard prerequisite. Do not scrape Biblica, BibleGateway, YouVersion, or another website to obtain the text.

Scope

• Identify the current authoritative Brazilian Portuguese NVI edition and rights holder.
• Confirm which registered legal entity would apply for and sign the license.
• Submit a permission or licensing request describing Bible Terminal accurately.
• Request an authoritative machine-readable source suitable for deterministic import.
• Determine whether royalties, reporting, approval, branding, security, or distribution restrictions apply.
• Record the decision and exact granted rights in an ADR or licensing record.
• If approved, document required attribution, trademarks, edition/version identifiers, and update obligations.
• If approved, open a separate implementation issue for manifest creation, import, localized book metadata, tests, notices, and release integration.
• If permission is denied or incompatible with the project, document the result and evaluate an openly redistributable pt-BR translation.

Required permissions

Written terms must explicitly address:

• embedding the complete NVI text in downloadable application binaries;
• offline reading, full-text search, reference lookup, navigation, and random verse selection;
• free distribution through GitHub Releases and package managers such as Homebrew;
• supported macOS and Linux architectures and worldwide downloads;
• mirrors, caches, checksummed archives, CI artifacts, and reproducible builds;
• whether third parties may fork, rebuild, or redistribute the MIT-licensed application when NVI data is excluded or included;
• storage in SQLite and creation of a search index without changing publisher verse text;
• use in automated tests and release validation;
• required copyright notices, attribution, translation name, abbreviation, and trademarks;
• retention of previously published release artifacts if the agreement expires or is terminated;
• access to and checksum pinning of an authoritative machine-readable source; and
• whether any restriction affects development tooling while the released application itself contains no AI or machine-learning feature.

Acceptance criteria

This issue is complete when one of these outcomes is documented:

Approved

• A signed written agreement permits the intended complete, offline distribution model.
• The authorized edition and source-delivery mechanism are identified.
• All attribution, trademark, technical, release, and ongoing compliance obligations are recorded.
• A focused implementation issue is ready to execute under Support multiple bundled Bible translations #14.

Not approved

• Biblica declines permission, the applicant is ineligible, or the offered terms conflict with public binary distribution and the project's release model.
• The decision and constraints are documented without committing or distributing NVI text.
• A follow-up issue identifies the preferred openly redistributable pt-BR alternative.

Non-goals

• Importing or bundling NVI text before written authorization.
• Treating the public website, an API token, or ordinary quotation permission as authorization for offline redistribution.
• Implementing the translation-selection architecture already tracked by Support multiple bundled Bible translations #14.
• Negotiating legal terms in a public issue; confidential correspondence and agreements should remain outside the repository, with only the operative permissions and obligations summarized publicly.