What happened to the Chinese Pinyin version of the NWT?

The Chinese Pinyin version of the NWT was removed from Equipd in the 2.1.5 update released on January 31, 2013.

Why was it removed? 

There is currently no Pinyin version of the NWT on jw.org. As a result, to assist brothers in this field, I generated the Pinyin NWT from the Chinese Traditional NWT, and actively improved the accuracy of the text with help from users. I stored the source files for the Pinyin NWT on the Equipd servers.

As part of a review of Equipd, the Legal Department asked me to remove the generated Pinyin translation as it was not an official NWT translation, and it was not being sourced directly from JW.org. This was the only feature of Equipd that breached copyright and needed to be changed. As a result from version 2.1.5 of Equipd new users who install Equipd will not be able to access or use the Pinyin version.

Existing users, those who installed Equipd before version 2.1.5, are still allowed to access the Pinyin version. If you fall into this category, and the Pinyin disappears for you, then please just send me an email. Also please help out by making it clear to new users that they cannot access the Pinyin, even if you can.

Of course if the official Pinyin version is ever made available on www.jw.org I will add it ASAP. I am also looking into options for supporting Pinyin that do not infringe on copyright, but the solution will not likely be available until version 3.0 of Equipd towards the end of this year.

 

UPDATE June 5 2013

I am pleased to announce that I have come up with a way to enable a form a Pinyin support that does not breach copyright. While it has some limitations, in many ways it is of more benefit as Pinyin can now be enabled for all publications in Equipd - even articles that you save into your Briefcase. You can read more about the new Pinyin support enabled in version 2.5.0 here.

And yes - the older Pinyin NWT Bible support will still work for users who qualify as outlined above.

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