23 November 2000 Editorial:
Christians and the Copyright Law

[EDITOR'S NOTE: I reproduce here for you a thought-provoking item by a fellow named Jack Decker. He probably doesn't know this website exists, but as I do, makes his material available for free reproduction. ed. LK]

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." - Matthew 6:24 (RSV)

We had a visitor at our church the other night. Perhaps this man has visited your church as well. When one of our ushers greeted him before the service and inquired as to this man's line of work, he would only say that he "travelled a lot." He sat through the entire service, THEN revealed that he had attended only to observe our church for possible violations of the copyright law.

You may not have realized it, but most Christian songs are copyrighted. If you reproduce them without the permission of the copyright owner, you have broken the copyright law and are subject to a fine. One church in Chicago apparently was fined $5,000 for copyright violations. The most common copyright violation is in the area of music intended for use of the congregation. Many churches use mimeographed song sheets or use an overhead projector to project a handwritten transparency of the song, both of which are illegal (it's legal to use a projector but only if the transparencies you use are obtained from or approved by the copyright holder).

Though most Christians would agree that we should not break the law of the land, one has to wonder about a law that can have the effect of inhibiting men from singing praises to God, or even from understanding the Bible. The Bible? Yes, in case you didn't realize it, all modern English-language versions of the Bible are copyrighted. Only the King James version of the Bible is not copyrighted. Thus, you cannot freely reprint portions of the word of God (in present-day English) without first securing permission from the copyright owner (you CAN quote small portions of text under a doctrine of law called "fair use", but you couldn't legally reproduce, say, the entire Gospel of John to give away as an evangelistic aid).

Of course, it's as likely as not that a copyright owner will NOT give you permission to reprint. Rather, they'll offer to SELL you copies of whatever you need, and will make a profit in the process. Thus, they take the word of God, or a song dedicated to God, and demand that men pay them before it can be used.

This is an issue that you hardly ever see discussed by anyone. Most of the big-time evangelists have books, records, and taped sermons, all of which are copyrighted. Thus, they have a financial incentive not to speak out against copyrights. I'm not saying that all of these men of God are deliberately withholding this from the Christian population (indeed, they may never have given the issue any thought at all, since Christians have been using copyrights for so long) but maybe now is the time to examine the issue, in light of recent attempts to strengthen the protection offered by the copyright law in the face of new technology (copying machines, tape duplicators, etc.).

Have you ever heard a Christian performer say "the Lord gave me this song?" Well, if that's true, then why did that performer probably apply for a copyright on it before the ink was dry on the paper? Did God give the performer that song as a means of praise and worship to Him, or so that the performer could profit by it? It would seem that if the Lord freely gives a song or a sermon to someone to share with God's people, that person has no business putting a price on it!

There are three categories of material that I think should NOT be copyrighted. One is the word of God itself, the Bible. Copyrighting the Bible restricts its use and forces men to pay other men for what rightfully belongs to God. There should NEVER be any restrictions on free distribution of the word of God.

The second category is a song or poem given by God to praise and glorify God. People should not have to pay other men in order to praise God together in an orderly manner, and if the Lord truly inspired the songwriter, doesn't ownership of the song really belong to God anyway?

The final category is anything given by God to edify men or instruct men in the ways of God. In other words, if God directs an author to deliver some message of importance to Christians, it should not be hindered by copyright restrictions.

There are a couple of objections that people usually raise to the above. One is that "the laborer is worthy of his hire", and that anyone who does work for God deserves to be compensated for it. The other is that copyright protection is needed to prevent others (non-Christians) from stealing all or part of the work and possibly perverting it (using the melody of a Christian song with words that promote sensual values, for example).

The first objection is easily answered if we consider the amount of actual effort that is put into writing a song or sermon compared to the possible returns that can be extorted through the use of the copyright. Many songwriters or sermon writers can complete a work in a day or two (especially if the Lord really gave them the work, as is often claimed) and rarely does it take more than a week or two. How much do you make working a week or two at your job? Yet that work may net the writer multiple thousands of dollars in copyright-imposed royalties, thus forcing people to pay much more than the value of the time involved. And the point remains that if God truly inspired the work, authorship belongs to God and the earthly vessel that he uses should be trusting God, not the copyright law, to supply his needs (it should also be pointed out that the phrase "the laborer is worthy of his hire" was used by Paul, who was talking about the "elders that rule well ... especially those who labor in the word and doctrine". See I Timothy 5:17-18. But that did not mean that they were to charge admission to their sermons! Rather, it meant that they were worthy to receive whatever offerings the people might be led to give them).

Of course, God may assist a writer with a book or some other work that requires lengthy preparation and possibly a real expenditure of money for research. In that case I would say it is between God and that man whether to copyright the book or other work, but I think that if the work is truly one that will be helpful to God's people, it would be better to leave it uncopyrighted. It would be better to offer such a work on a free will or a donation basis and let God take care that the author receives just compensation. But for someone whose faith is weak (that somehow cannot fully trust God to take care that they are not "cheated"), I cannot with full conviction say that it is a sin for them to copyright their book.

I can't see the original authors of the books of the Bible copyrighting and charging others for what they wrote. But I can't see Paul giving away all of the tents that he made, either. Some say that all ideas originate from God, and the work of our hands is the only thing we are entitled to be compensated for. This, again, brings us back to the question of how much research or other real "work" was required to produce the work in question, and whether we are willing to trust God, rather than man, to see that we are compensated properly for that work.

As for the thought that the work may be "stolen" by a non-Christian, such an argument betrays a lack of trust in God. If the work is used in its original form, it may reach people who would not see or hear it otherwise and inspire them to turn to God - and the fact that anyone can use it without making royalty payments may assure it a much wider distribution than it would otherwise have. And if the work is perverted by someone, God is powerful and is able to handle the situation! It may be that God has a reason for allowing that to happen, and it may be that God will use that work to draw the wrongdoer to Him. But if there is any punishment to be meted out, remember that God says, "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge, I will repay,' says the Lord." (Romans 12:19)

But probably the best reason for not using copyright protection is that it may put the copyright owner into the position of violating God's law. You see, in order to retain copyright protection, a copyright owner has to enforce it against any known violators or the protection is lost. What that means is that if a violation is discovered, the violator must be forced to pay for the infringement, or be sued in court to recover actual and punitive damages. Now, what happens if the violator is a Christian, but either cannot or will not pay up? You have to take him to a court of law, before worldly judges. This is very strongly and specifically prohibited in I Corinthians 6, verses 1-8. These verses should be required reading for any Christian that is considering the use of Copyright protection.

The only case in which I would say that it MAY be all right for a Christian to obtain copyright protection (and I'm not even fully convinced of this in my own mind) is when that work in question is intended for the secular market (i.e. non-Christians) and is not a Christian work (for example, if a Christian writes a book about how to build a backyard barbecue, it would probably be okay to copyright it). The reason for this is that the most likely violators would be worldly people. However, even in this case, the question remains of what to do if a copyright violator professes to be a Christian. You'd have to trust God for wisdom at that time, because there's simply no way you can justify violating God's law to satisfy man's.

As I have said, I doubt that you'll hear this preached from many pulpits, especially in light of the "success syndrome" that has crept into many churches (the book "The Seduction of Christianity" by Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon does a good job of exposing this heresy). And you won't see many books published on the subject, since it would not be in the self-interest of many publishers to do so. I'd love to see a book publisher decide to really trust God for their income, and release some books without copyright notices! And the Christian music industry will probably continue to send Judases into our midst, hoping to catch us in copyright violations and then forcing us to take God's money, which was given in tithes and offerings, and use it to pay them and the courts for their evil deeds. It's about time that some Christian songwriters said "enough!" to this and started placing some of their music in the public domain, so that it could be freely used by God's people to praise Him.

I'd like to hear any comments that others may have on this subject, pro or con, or any scriptures that the Lord may give you that seem to be applicable to this discussion. Please feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts.

As you might expect, THIS article is released to the public domain for the Glory of God, and may be freely reprinted!

Jack Decker

EPILOGUE: At the time I first wrote this I uploaded it to one or two Christian BBS's and in the years since I have probably posted it to two or three conferences on Fidonet and Usenet. Unfortunately, it's always been controversial, since apparently there are many people making their living from exactly the type of "Christian" works described above. What is hard for me to understand about it is that these "Christian" copyright holders are very often people who would look down their noses at others who engage in occupations that they consider "immoral", or that violate earthly law (e.g. pornography, dealing in illegal drugs, selling alcoholic beverages), and they think they are so much better than those people because they are "doing the Lord's work", yet it never occurs to them that they may be in the position of violating God's law by entering into a situation that may require them to take a fellow believer to court. If you make your living by violating God's laws, how can you look down your nose at anyone who violates only the laws of man? They could, after all, also claim that this is just their chosen way of making a living, and that no one else should speak out against it.

Even in the secular world, I think we are seeing the concept of "intellectual property" raised to new levels of absurdity. Recently we've seen situations where works have passed into the public domain due to age, and then new laws have been passed that have once again restored copyright protection to these works. In the computer world, companies have sued other companies because they simply copied the basic "look and feel" of the first company's product, and not any of the actual computer code. If this kind of "intellectual property" protection had been around when automobile were first developed, every brand of car on the road might have the controls that operate the steering, brakes, acceleration, etc. in different places and operated by different methods. Consider for a moment that you can probably drive someone else's car if it's a different make than the one you're used to, but can you operate their computer if it's a different make than the one you're familiar with?

Now that we have the concept of "intellectual property" (which is something I consider a flawed concept from the start - really a legal fiction on the same level as the concept of a corporation being the same as a person), we have to consider how far this concept can be taken. If intellectual property is legally the same as real property, can the government claim the right of eminent domain, as it does with real estate? For those not familiar with eminent domain, it means that in reality the government has ultimate ownership of all property, since it can confiscate property from any citizen for its own use (it also means that the government is supposed to compensate the landowner for the land taken, but as we have seen in recent years, the government doesn't always follow through on that part of it, especially when the land is taken for "environmental" reasons).

How does government exercise "eminent domain" over intellectual property? Well, take for example export controls over certain types of computer software. Ask Phil Zimmerman, the author of "Pretty Good Privacy", who got into big trouble with the government because someone else sent some of his programs outside of the United States. The encryption routines developed by Phil Zimmerman were his own thoughts, his own "Intellectual Property" if you accept that concept, but because he is a citizen of the United States the U.S. Government felt justified in taking his work (by attempting to prevent him from publishing it in any place where it might be seen by a foreign national, which in today's world effectively equates to not publishing it at all). And this is my point: If you equate thoughts and ideas with property, you have to realize that property can be taken and controlled. The government can exercise its right of "eminent domain" over a person's creativity! And if the government doesn't come after you, some large corporation might if they figure your thoughts are too close to ideas that they've had "protected".

The Constitution of the United States guarantees free speech and a free press, but apparently that doesn't imply freedom to publish ideas or thoughts that someone else could claim as their "property". If the government can claim ownership of certain ideas, that allows them to effectively impose censorship, as apparently happened in the Zimmerman case. Please understand that I'm not real big on encryption, and at this writing I've never felt the need or desire to use Pretty Good Privacy, or any other means of encryption. But on the other hand, I think that free people should have the right to communicate privately with each other if they wish, without the necessity of making the government privy to every communication they might have.

The ultimate problem with "intellectual property" laws is that, even as they attempt to protect some people, they put others at a disadvantage by inhibiting the free exchange of ideas. For example, suppose that there was a book written forty years ago that I think everyone should read, because it answers many of the more perplexing questions that people have. Were it not for copyright laws, I could put the text of the book on a World Wide Web page on the Internet. Now you might object that this cheats the author out of a just reward for his efforts, but suppose that author died thirty years ago? He's not alive so I can't ask him for permission to re-publish his work, and if the rights have fallen into the hands of some large corporation, they almost certainly aren't going to give me permission. The best I could do is try to paraphrase his book in a book of my own, being careful not to closely copy anything he has written, lest I be sued for infringement. But suppose that the original author had far superior writing and communications skills? No matter how fervently I believe in what he wrote, I might not be able to state it as clearly or persuasively as he did. Therefore, the vast majority of people will never be exposed to the ideas contained in that book, all for the sake of someone's legal right to make a residual income from the work of that author.

One other problem that I feel in inherent in the concept of "intellectual property", which I won't discuss in depth here, is that it allows a person to do work once and then get paid for it again and again. I'm not going to state unequivocally that this is wrong, but the fact is that the vast majority of people in the world only get paid once for work that they have done, and I have difficulty understanding why it should be different for authors, songwriters, and similar artists. Where it gets really ludicrous is when an artist creates a "work for hire", in which the artist is only paid once and then someone else owns the rights and can keep making money off the work. In this case you have someone who did none of the work receiving continuing payments for that work!

So I think that Christians and non-Christians alike ought to give some serious thought as to where all this expansion of "intellectual property rights" is taking us. For a Christian, exercising these "rights" may first mean claiming something as one's own that in reality belongs to God, and it may also mean that someday you'll be required to go to court against a fellow believer, in violation of the scriptures. For a non-Christian, buying into the concept that your thoughts are "property" means that they can be bought or sold, or even taken by the government. It means that you may not be able to use or even share ideas you've had, if your government doesn't want you to, or if someone else claims to have thought of it first.

Finally, I again submit that the reason that this subject is rarely discussed is because so many people believe that they need to have the "protection" of copyright in order to achieve financial gain. Virtually every newspaper, magazine, and television and radio newscast is copyrighted, so who is going to speak out against the encroachment of "intellectual property" legislation on free thought? If ideas can be had for free, then you really don't need to pay someone else for their ideas and thoughts. I think a lot of publishers are a bit worried about the Internet for this very reason, since it allows people to communicate and exchange thoughts and ideas more freely than they have in the past. Who needs to buy a book or magazine on any subject if you can "pick the brains" of several experts who are participating in a computer conferencing area? Not only do you get the information faster, but you'll probably hear several different opinions and if one person states a factual error, it's quite likely that some other knowledgeable person will offer a correction. So I really do not expect any of the conventional news outlets or publishers to stir up the general public about the negative effects of "intellectual property" laws. How or why would anyone who is using these laws to their own advantage speak out against them?

So, dear reader, for once you are hearing an idea that probably isn't going to be repeated or discussed in books or magazine articles. Whether you agree with it or not, and what you do with it if you do agree is up to you. All I ask is that you don't dismiss it out of hand simply because you didn't read it in a major magazine or see it discussed on your favorite TV talk show.

Jack Decker
Epilogue written August 19, 1995

Added October 26, 1998 - Although this page has been up on the Web for over three years now, for the first time and within the space of two days this week I have received TWO messages taking issue with my statement that "in order to retain copyright protection, a copyright owner has to enforce it against any known violators or the protection is lost." The second person to write to me about this (who admits to being a non-lawyer) stated: "This is not true. Copyright protection exists whether you register your work or not, whether you protect it or not. You are probably confusing copyright and trademark law, where you do have to actively defend your trademarks." Well, I will admit that I may be wrong about this - I am not a lawyer either, but I think that at some point in the past I may have been told that if you don't vigorously enforce any intellectual property rights, you risk losing them. Of course, it's entirely possible that whoever told me that didn't know what they are talking about, or that it may all be a figment of my imagination. If any lawyers happen to read this and could give me a definitive answer on this, I'd appreciate it.

This same person also takes issue with my comments about Phil Zimmerman. When I originally posted those comments, I was using a Web page source as a reference. That page has long since disappeared so I had to remove the clickable link to that page. I'm not entirely sure that my information is correct (or incorrect) at this late date, but I didn't just make this up out of thin air. So take my comments about Phil Zimmerman's situation with a few grains of salt, as the saying goes. I will clarify that I have no knowledge that the government has overtly attempted to assert ownership of Mr. Zimmerman's ideas (that would really be a pretty stupid move on their part), but that's not what I meant anyway - what I was trying to say is that when the government tries to tell you which of your original ideas you can or cannot express, whether in this country or any other, then in effect they are asserting a form of ownership rights over your ideas. In a way it's similar to saying that you "own" real estate - you have a deed to it and everyone recognizes it as yours - but if you fail to pay the property taxes on it for a certain number of years, the government will take possession of it and resell it, so who does it REALLY belong to? Few government officials would be so dumb as to walk onto "your" land and publicly state that it's really theirs, and few government officials would ever assert that your ideas really belong to the government, but if they can control the manner in which you disseminate your ideas, isn't that at least somewhat akin to asserting ownership rights?

Added February 4, 1997 - I received the following e-mail message from a visitor to this page which illustrates just how bad the problem is:

From: ELWhitton@aol.com
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 13:57:46 -0500 (EST)
To: Jack Decker
Subject: Copyright

I cannot believe that I found someone that I agree 100% with on the subject of copyrighted Christian material....I am going to e-mail a copy of your article to my pastor. For years I have attended churches that photocopied choir songs. Two years ago I joined a church that paid a fee to a "copyright" company. With this fee we were supposed to be able to copy certain publishers. When we found out that this was not the case we purchased original books for each choir member and destroyed all photocopied material.

Later, when our renewal came due to the"copyright" company we told them we no longer needed their service because we had purchased books. They informed us that if we taped our services, which we do, we were still in violation of the copyright laws. We tape our services as a ministry to our invalids and shut-ins. I feel like we have been doing business with an extortionist. (Emphasis added.)

Does this not fall in the category of "fair use"? Thanks for your well expressed insights.

Eric
elwhitton@aol.com

My reply to Eric was fairly long but it was along the lines that I feel that this company may be making a generalization that is not supported by law. Because I am not a lawyer I can't give legal advice, and I may be all wet here, but I think it would in part depend how the tape was used. If the church makes tapes that include copyrighted music and then sells them (even if the sale is at or near cost) there may be a violation. However, if the tape were made for private use (for the pastor to review the service later, or even for a no-charge loan to shut-ins) I'm not at all convinced that a violation would exist. Taping copyrighted material for private use is something almost everyone does - every time you tape a television show to watch it at a more convenient time, you are essentially doing the same thing this church is doing when they make a tape to loan to a shut-in.

Of course, if a church is worried about this, they could simply get the church's ten-year-old techie whiz kid (you know... the one in every congregation that just hates sitting still for the entire service) to sit in front of the cassette recorder and press the "pause" button every time a copyrighted song is used. And they could increase their usage of non-copyrighted music, or music that they have received explicit permission to use from the copyright holder.

But isn't it appalling that a church would feel threatened simply because they are wanting to extend their ministry to shut-ins? I'm not God, and I have no desire to see anyone go to Hell, but sometimes I do wonder if the fires of Hell won't be extra hot in the place where those will spend eternity who claimed to be Christians, yet participated in making threats or bringing legal actions against churches that were simply praising God in song. I simply cannot imagine that God approves of this sort of thing!

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Mark 8:36 (KJV)

Added February 18, 2000 - One more of several e-mail messages I have received about this page. If you want to reply, please send your reply directly to Brendon at the address shown in the "From:" line:

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 05:41:16 +0800
From: Brendon <brendon@magix.com.sg>
Subject: CHRISTIANS AND THE COPYRIGHT LAW

Dear Jack Decker,

I cannot agree with u more on the above. Since Jesus's time, those who would turn God's house into a 'house of merchandise' [John 2:13-16] have always been among us.

The main thing upon which the issue turns is in my opinion, the question of how long it takes to compose a song [which you also discussed]. When I was younger & in Sunday School, we needed a 'camp theme song' & one of our church members with musical talent was able to come up with a very good song, lyric & tune wise, appropriate to the camp theme & it definitely took him much less than 8 hours or a day's worth of work. He didn't copyright the song. The same thing happened when I was in college. I was in charge of getting a camp theme song for an IVCF camp & my friend told me that someone he knew could write up an appropriate song [both words & lyrics] & asked me if I would like this guy to do it. I said yes, & very shortly afterwords, I got both the lyrics & the music. It was not copyrighted either & was as good as any commercial & copyrighted song.

My question to the Christian song writers/composers who believe that it is only fair for them to copyright their songs is this: do u sit around for at least a day working at a song? As far as I know, the answer is negative as I knew a few talented composers myself & how long it took them to compose a song [I personally asked]. & if not, then verses such as "the laborer is worthy of his hire" & the like cannot be used as a Christian basis for copyrighting.

God forbid the day when Sunday School teachers, those who play musical instruments for church & who have to spend hours practising, choir members, people in lay leadership & who knows who else, started to charge for their 'services' to the church on the argument that "the laborer is worthy of his hire".

If I had known that those composers wanted royalties even for non-commercial use of their songs, I wouldn't have bothered to learn their songs in the first place.

I believe that copyrighting a Christian song for reasons other than for profit is fine, e.g. one may wish to be given credit for the song etc; but to do so for the motive of profit runs against the very spirit of Christianity.

Jesus said, 'Freely you have received, freely give' [Matthew 10:8]. This spirit of generosity can be seen clearly in the life of Martin Luther, Florence Nightingale & other great heroes of faith. Martin Luther even gave away his household goods, furniture, etc, to the needy to the point where his wife had to stop him for fear they would be left with nothing. If, like some composers claim, the Lord actually gave them their song in a moment of inspiration, they should likewise freely give. I cannot imagine David the psalmist copyrighting his songs if he were alive today. Likewise for Isaac Watts, the Wesleys & all the other hymn writers, prolific or otherwise.

To use the things of God for one's personal interest/profit is wrong, & this also applies to any organization, even a church. It tells the world that Christianity is no different from the world, in that our trust too is in mammon. What else can the world think? Jesus reacted harshly to those who commercialised the things of God [John 2:13-17], it showed how much He felt about it, & our feelings about commercialising the things of God shouldn't be any less.

But perhaps there are things that I don't know & thus would very much like to hear from Christian songwriters who still believe that copywriting their songs is fair, in the light of what I've said.

Brendon Yeo, Singapore
(Again, if you wish to reply to Brendon, please send your reply directly to him at the address shown at the top of this message.)

Added August 21, 2000 - Here is another e-mail I have received - again, if you want to reply to this, please visit Joey's Web site or send him e-mail at the address shown in the "From:" line:

From: "Joey Cagle" <jcagle104@hotmail.com>
Subject: Christians and the Copyright Law
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 16:36:04 EDT

Jack,

I am a Christian industrial/techno/rock artist called Fleshdead. I got the name when I read Romans 6:1-14. You can check out my web site at http://fleshdead.allhere.com

I have read bits and pieces of your article "Christians and the Copyright Law" and from what I can see, you're totally right. And that is something I have been trying to explain to people. Some people understand it, but some don't. I do not copyright my music. I do sell CDs, but I allow people to distribute the songs freely for non-commercial purposes.

If you look at the way the world is anyway, copyrighting music these days is useless. With programs such as Napster, any MP3 is made available to people. If a musician copyrights his music these days, he justs waists $30.00 every time he sends that copyright form into the copyright registration office.

I have nothing against Christian artists that copyright their music. In fact I know some that do copyright their music but it doesn't bother them to have it freely distributed. Well I will continue to make the music I play freely available in a world where most music is not legally freely available. If anyone has Napster, my name on there is romans6v1-14 and everyone should feel free to download my MP3s.

Joey Cagle
(And once again, if you wish to reply to Joey, please send your reply directly to him at the address shown at the top of this message.)

Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 12:49:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: [Withheld by request]
Subject: wow......

Oh my ____,

I've never heard a christian say such things. You should be ashamed :-) I'm joking of course,...you hit the nail on the head, big time. I play in a band that was "formerly" signed to a "big time" christian record label. Since the desolve of the company I've done more research than ever to realize how far from "chrisian" the christian music industry is.

My thoughts on mixing music/art/commerce/& the Lord have since DRASTICALLY changed. I've lived the life for 3 years, touring, dealing with "christian" promoters, "christian" producers, "christian" lawyers than enforce ungodly principals and it's all ____. I'll have nothing to do with it anymore. Lying, cheating, and fighting for the bottom dollar is nothing I want to be associated with, especially when it comes to God. I expect this type of behavior from "normal business" dealings with non-christians. That's what they're supposed to do! What is COMPLETLY intolerable is when "brothers and sisters" associate the name of God with sleazy business dealings and ungodly business ethics simply to ship a product. God simply isn't into it, and I hate it.

My band is continuing to play, but in a different light. We no longer cater to the Christian audience, as we've come to realize what sort of compromise this automatically puts us in. Copyright laws exist to protect an individuals music rights? Well,....you'd be hard pressed to find ANY Christian artist that owns any of their work,...let alone the copyrights. One label in particular has a publishing company entitled, "weownyoursongs publishing". What an attrocity.

It never ceases to amaze me that someone completely gifted by God can write a song, say, like Hey Jude, and not own the rights to it. Someone else gets paid each time that song is played. I agree that something should be done wholeheartedly,....I'm just puzzled as to what? I believe that there should be laws preventing "highest bid" ownership of copyrights and publishing. I mean think about it. Who owns the publishing to the songs "Awesome God", or "As The Deer"? Each time a church pays publshing for that, it could be going to a company or individual that uses the money to combat the church. Do you see the dilemna? Paying your adversaries with your own tithe money for singing worship songs that they own the rights to? Absurd is an understatement. I believe education is the key here. The Bible says "my people perish for lack of knowledge",..and that couldn't be more true today.

We used to have a saying on the road regarding ill-informed Christians,..."what they lack in brains, they make up for with good intentions". Sadly humorous,..but very true. Anyway,...I could rant for hours, but I'll stop here. I'm getting convicted :-) I appreciate you having the guts to publish such an article. Oddly enough, your page is featured on more non-christian sites than christian ones.

Hmmm.......

Thanks again.

p.s.
feel free to post this reply, i would just ask that you not print my email address. thanks.

(The above message is exactly as I received it [I did some additional editing--L.K.], except that I did break it into paragraphs for easier reading. And in case you're wondering, I had never really thought of "Hey Jude" as a Christian song either, but then the writer didn't say it was, he just says that the authors of that song were completely gifted by God. And, I guess that we can all agree that Lennon and McCartney were indeed gifted songwriters, even if they did not always use their talent to glorify God. Or is it possible that the writer of this message is talking about a different song with that title, that I've never heard of?)

NOTES (these may be changed or deleted if the referenced links change):

I talked above about a book that I think everyone should read. Obviously I believe that the Bible falls into that category, but if you are not comfortable with "Olde English" then please get a modern translation and use it. A modern translation that is read is far superior to any older version that gathers dust because the owner gets frustrated with the ancient English and puts it on the shelf. [NOTE: The KJV is a superior Bible translation. I do not share Deckers' view. L.K.] I like the New International Version, but there are also other good modern translations (you might like The NET Bible, which can be read online). However, the book that I more or less had in mind when I wrote the above scenario is called "Mere Christianity", written by C.S. Lewis around the time of World War II (1943, to be exact). I honestly don't know what its copyright status is at this point, but I suspect it is still protected. The thing about this book is that it tackles some of the tougher questions asked by those who are not convinced of the existence of God, or who do not understand why some things are in the Bible. I would recommend it!

There is a site called Free Computer Bibles that is "a collection of freeware bible software for use on your computer." Unfortunately, most of it uses the Archaic English (also known as King James) Version (this site refers to it as "elegant"; I think of it more as "unintelligible"). They have a page entitled "Looking for an NIV or NASB Bible?" and on that page they lay it on the line by stating, "Because of royalty fees owed to the authors of these translations, you wont find any free bibles in these modern translations." BUT, on this same web page they offer an interesting alternative - "the FREE 'Bible in Basic English'" - as well as information on a relatively low-cost program called BiblePro that includes several of the most popular translations (including some modern English ones).

Chris Pierce is the author of Music - The Electronic Songbook. He also has some thoughts to share about copyright and how it relates to Christian music, on his page Copyright Laws and the MUSIC program. Chris is part of a group that is looking for people interested in helping develop a Free Praise & Worship song (CopyLeft) web site archive.

Modified February 25, 2000 - A few other pages you may wish to visit include Opinion: Do two wrongs make a copyright? (note that at this site, the acronym "OTR" stands for "Old-Time Radio"), "Information Age": For Whom? (an article by the creator of "Project Gutenberg", describing how copyright laws have been continually expanding in the past century, kind of like "The Blob" in the old grade-B horror film), The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights Property, "If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence", and the IP Not Home Page. I probably would not agree with everything found on the above-mentioned pages, but I'm glad that others are starting to see the problem with intellectual property laws.

Added May 4, 2000 - Why Copyright Should Be Abolished by Les Brunswick is an opinion piece that objects to copyright for a different reason. His basic idea is that at the time copyright laws were enacted, publishing a book or audio recording was a very expensive proposition, and that was the reason that some felt copyright protection was needed. However, this is no longer the case, and I would note that even as the costs to publish have dropped significantly, the level of copyright protection has increased, not decreased.

Added May 18, 2000 - Compiler Press' Compleat World Copyright Website - this site is a compilation of 'deep links' to world-wide web pages concerning 'copyright', i.e. in the English-speaking or Common Law tradition of creator's rights rather than 'author's rights' in the European Civil Code tradition. This is a resource for anyone doing research on copyright law, anywhere in the world.

Larry's Songs of Praise and Worship - the Christian songwriters contributing to this online resource are committed to providing, with no expectation of profit, songs of praise and worship that may be freely copied and used to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You may wish to visit the Christian News and Information Resources page, which offers links to sites of interest to Christians, with a special emphasis on exposing false doctrine in the Church that often conflicts with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, and on access to 'alternative' news sources.

I used to encourage people to contact me via e-mail. However, I now maintain a large number of Web pages and I simply do not have the time to answer most personal e-mail anymore. I still read everything that people send me EXCEPT for mail which bears certain characteristics that identify it as "SPAM" (unsolicited commercial e-mail) - anything that appears to be "SPAM" may be automatically sent to my trash can without me ever seeing it. Unfortunately, this means that on occasion a valid piece of e-mail also gets thrown away. The chances of that happening to a piece of personal e-mail that you send me are very small, but they are not zero. So if you do send me e-mail, please be aware that there is a small chance that I won't see it at all, and a very large chance that I will not send you a personal reply.

If you choose to write anyway, and are sending comments about this page, please mention that you visited my CHRISTIANS AND THE COPYRIGHT LAW page - otherwise I may not have a clue as to which page you're referring to! If after reading the above, you still want to contact me, my e-mail address is "jack" followed by the "@" symbol followed by "novagate.com". I'm sorry about writing it out that way but I do so in an attempt to thwart automated programs that search the Web looking for e-mail addresses to send SPAM to. I don't want SPAM and would NEVER, EVER buy anything from a company that sends it to me! Also, gratuitous flames will be cheerfully ignored.