Ministry Commons

Sharing

The Bible Time project is a ministry in the proper New Testament sense of the word. The normal copyright system is unable to provide an environment for ministry without deliberate action. This article explores the issues and the Bible Time answer.

Background

I set out to write up a more complete copyright notice for the Bible Time web site and before it was done I ended up with a sermon. It was a prophetic word to myself and likely to many others who are in ministry of various forms. Instead of leaving it under the copyright label I chose to write this up as a more complete message on Sharing.

This came in 3 great waves and I have yet to fully finish this article... Bigger fish for the time being.

How, exactly, are we to share information that we have gathered in ministry? I dare say this question is answered badly by many people.

The modern copyright system is designed to prevent sharing. Indeed, it is not possible to approach a New Testament model without going through hoops.

The New Testament model for ministry materials is a sharing chain where each person along the chain receives and then shares ministry material. Ministry materials, in the general case, can be any form of communication, like the Bible itself but also letters, audio, music, charts, books, video, and even multimedia presentations. There are no bounds on what "ministry materials" might be.

There are at least 3 aspects to the Biblical model of the sharing chain:

• Ministry materials are to be shared with anyone who will listen. Anyone who receives ministry through any form of ministry material is free to pass original and changed copies of those materials onto anyone else they so choose. Our goal is bringing people into the kingdom. Any restriction on making copies hinders advancement of the kingdom. Restrictions preventing the making of copies of ministry materials borders on an abomination, it is not to be done. The Church may never have survived the first century if there were restrictions on copies.

• Ministry materials may be distributed for the financial rewards of the distributer. Workers are worth their wages. But, this is an impure ministry motive and usually leads to the loss of personal anointing. The person making materials available on any of several possible financial basis must still not restrict the receiver from passing copies of that same material to someone else down the sharing chain. The receiver may do so for profit, or not, and owes nothing but gratitude back to the original author and all those earlier in the sharing chain.

• Attribution, the crediting of an original author, happens in the New Testament on some occasions, and not on others. Generally, attribution is needed for certain ministry materials, and is clearly inappropriate in others. As a general rule attribution should be done when the original writer signs a work, and not otherwise. Original authors must carefully consider if they should be signing a work, or not.

These three attributes sit within a much larger move of the Holy Spirit going on around the world today. Before going further, it is important to look at the various calls that Christians are receiving worldwide.

The Call to Leave

The single most common unifying thread found in Christian activity across the world today is a call to leave. This call is summed up by a short verse from Revelation.

This call to believers to leave the "Babylonian" system has been heard by American Christians for at least a generation. The call is extensive and cuts across nearly all aspects of the Christian walk. But, the consequences of heeding the call differ in different areas, so the call has been heeded to different degrees by different Christians.

The Call: Out of Government Schools

Probably the most fully developed example of the call to Babylonian systems is the call to get Christian children out of Government Schools.

This call began in the late 1970s, but was triggered most spectacularly after a Focus on the Family radio broadcast in the early 1980s spread the idea to thousands who might not have otherwise heard Jesus' call. The great increase in the numbers of home schoolers spawned the formation support groups, printed curriculum, and Christian sponsored legal aid for those parents faced with legal proceedings aimed at stopping the movement at large.

Today, home schooling remains the best and most ideal way to help Christian children get through their school age years without life long scars from the plagues caused by the sins promoted in the government run schools. Home schooling is indeed one of the ways families leave Babylon.

For an example of this in Germany, you can read an article here.

The Call: Out of Debt

The call to leave Babylon can be clearly seen in other aspects of the Christian life. One of those calls is the Call to be out of debt. This call is specific to the use of bank supplied credit as an alternative to provision from Jesus himself.

This call, too, has had various ministries spring up around the call. These ministries provide the instruction many people need on how to handle personal finances in a godly way.

This call, though, has not been as widely heeded in American Christian circles because debt financing provides a leverage against suffering the effects of inflation. Ignoring this call has and will cause many Christians to suffer needlessly when economic conditions turn down, as they do after each great end-times plague.

The Call: Eat Well

Another area where Jesus has called his people out of the Babylonian system is in the area of food. The call? Eat well.

When Daniel was hauled away to ancient Babylon he had to endure the food. Though Daniel's story is often couched as an issue of Mosaic Law, the simple problem was the poisonous nature of the food served at the king's court. Instead of eating the Babylonian food Daniel had to fight is way out of the Babylonian system.

This call to stop eating the common, poisonous American diet has been heard across the Christian world. Groups organized around this call are sometimes called 'food co-ops.' Certain foods, like drug free meat, cannot be legally purchased any other way than on the hoof. Co-ops provide the way to get these foods and provide them to members.

Members of food co-ops can obtain and eat foods free of the toxins typical in modern processed foods. These groups almost invariably help their members see that eating a high carbohydrate, fattening, American fast food diet is a wide road to early death. This is the Babylonian diet that caused Daniel so much trouble.

The Call: Leave Organized Religion

Yet another area where Christians have been 'called out of Babylon' is in the area of church attendance itself. In the American Christian experience this call to "go underground" is usually thought of as a call to believers in other nations. China, for example, has an extensive underground Christian community, separate from the organized, government endorsed church.

American Christians often marvel at what believers must endure in other countries, but don't recognize the situation in America itself. Like China, American has a large and growing underground Christian church community.

Underground churches don't suffer from stiffeling government imposed restrictions like limits on public speech. Nor do they suffer from denominational foolishness like gay hiring, gay ordination or hundred year old abstract theologies clearly in opposition to scripture.

Underground churches are not 'cell groups' which is the government run church's perverted response to this genuine call of the Spirit.

Of course Christians who leave organized religion for the underground church suddenly realize they are ill equipped for genuine Christian ministry. They often discover they don't know enough about the Bible. When they start to read it they learn things never taught in the organized government sponsored church.

They also discover the need for the power of God only available through prayer and fasting. People often discover that structured times of traditional services don't match people's true needs, and that ministry can stretch on for many, many hours, sometimes days.

They often discover that there is now funding for personal ministry, something unheard of in the organized church. Managing those funds becomes yet another series of lessons.

They also find they are persecuted by those who remain in government endorsed churches, and sometimes the find themselves persecuted by the government itself.

Indeed, the ability to answer these issues, and many more, is the heart of what Christian maturity really is. Getting that maturity requires believers to answer the call and leave Babylon and her ways.

For more read The Out-Of-Church Christians by Andrew Strom.

The New Call: Free Speech

Another call being heard across the Christian world is a call asking believers to share the good news of the gospel in a way that matches the way people shared the gospel in the New Testament. I label this the call to Free Speech.

This is a call to communicate in ways that can be heard across time and distance. It is a call to communicate in ways not normally done in America, and especially not done in the organized visible, American church. This is a call to communicate that matches the way communication was handled in the New Testament.

The best scripture to understand this is the situation at the tower of Babel. The world had one voice, one language, and everyone had to speak it. There was not any other way to communicate. It is also possible that nobody even knew they could communicate differently. This was offensive to Yahweh and he broke the demon when he gave people different languages.

When Jesus approached the same demon in individual people those people were deaf and/or mute. They were unable to speak and/or unable to listen. When the demon behind it was driven out, and this was a hard one to drive out, the people could suddenly speak and/or hear.

A Little Copyright History

The current situation relative to Free Speech in America is not what was intended by the framers of the Constitution. The intent of the constitution relative to public speech was suspended through two changes in the copy right laws, one change in 1976 another in 1998.

The 1976 American law had one of the most profound impacts on free speech ever seen in America. Before this point the right to prevent others from duplicating someone's speech was only granted after a copy was registered with the government and that speech itself was marked with a warning indicating duplication was limited to licensed parties.

Muted, deaf speech is what commercial speech really is. Copyrighted speech, in any media, in any form, is Babylonian Speech by definition. This form of speech was reserved for people with vested commercial interest in their own communications. The promise of commercial rewards provided the motivation to pay for the copy deposited with the government. The copyright notice, a warning rather, warned off those who wanted to discourse the copyrighted matter in the public's interest.

After 1976 the American copyright laws were changed to eliminate the need for registration. They were also changed to eliminate the need for copyright marking. This change was made so American law would follow the European practice. Perhaps this was neighborly, it certainly wasn't nobel, and it ripped from American culture any working public domain.

The effect this had on Free Speech was profound. From 1976 on, all communications, in essentially every form, was declared by law as the property of the original author or their assignees. From then on there was no longer any such thing as Free Speech in the United States. All speech in American was suddenly and permanently declared as restricted speech, what I believe is modern prophetic form of limited, one voice, Babylonian speech.

The change in the law may have seemed good at the time. It appeared to give everyone the same rights as media conglomerates that had the money for the lawyers needed to protect their various copyrights.

But, it meant that nobody had the legal right to carry on a conversation in the public domain. There was no longer a way to freely share ideas. No longer could you take an idea expressed by someone else and add to it, or critique it, or criticize it. All earlier expression was automatically copyrighted. Now, it took a lawyer to secure rights from the copyright holder, when none have been needed before.

A Little More Copyright History

The copyright system known to Americans across most of our history came nearly without change from English tradition. The first copyright law was enacted in 1709 and its purpose was to limit the 5 large media companies in London at the time.

That first copyright law required registration for protective rights on copying to vest. That law limited the length of time granted by to the monopoly that the registration granted. That first copyright law gave all other members of the public rights to use that speech after a limited amount of time.

The net purpose of copyright law was to limit the abuses possible by highly funded monopoly media companies. In order to remain profitable they had to contribute discovery to society by discovering and printing new things.

At the founding of the republic, the competitor to monopoly, copyrighted speech was public domain speech. In the 1770s nearly 95 percent of all written works in America were not copyrighted, but rather were intentionally given to the public domain, they were made free, at the time of their publication.

The benefit to the public was enormous. Public discourse on nearly all subjects could be conducted without any fears of litigation over the duplication of earlier discourse on the same topic. This is in part what Free Speech is all about.

Though there were minor changes to copyright law in the intervening years, The public domain nature of free speech in its various forms ended in 1976.

The 1976 change made everyone have an instant copyright, but it also meant that if you wanted to speak to the public domain, speak in such a way that anyone could use your work, you had to hire a lawyer and have the lawyer craft a declaration for your work stating that it was put into the public domain. If you wanted to use someone else's work you needed to hire a lawyer to get their permission.

Even if you did not want a copyright, your heirs might, and so taking no action at all was the same as taking on a highly restrictive license. No one dare use the work of another, even without a copyright warning on the first work.

Though the law did allow a thing called 'Fair Use' that concept only exists as an academic theory, it does not exist in real legal practice. No one in any of the commercial media companies relies on Fair Use to cover their use of another's work, no matter how small the quote. To rely on Fair Use is to invite legal action.

Of course the interesting case is the person who doesn't have the money for a lawyer but has something interesting or important to say to the public at large. Those people were the ones most completely silenced by the 1976 changes to copyright law.

Suddenly, Americans accepted the same demon as the ancient Babylonians. (and Europeans, from which the 1976 law was modeled.) It was no longer legal to say what someone else had said, or write what someone else had written, without their expensive to obtain prior written permission.

Imagine, if Jesus had lived in America after the 1976 changes to copyright. None of the red letters found in Bibles today could have been included, without hiring some of the Pharisees to draft a license contract between Jesus and the disciples. Without a contract, those inclusions would otherwise have violated Jesus' implied copyright and Bibles as we know them could not have been published.

I believe the net effect of the American Copyright system is to mute all speech except government endorsed, commercial speech. The copyright system mutes the independent public voice in profound ways and it prevents public discourse on a range of topics. Typically the quenched voice is the unfunded voice of righteousness.

New Testament Instruction on Sharing

Let's back up and look at what the Bible teaches about how speech is supposed to work. Of course to the Bible the most interesting speech is the speech spoken as a part of ministry. Though the principles apply to all forms of speech.

One of the earliest clear instructions on how ministry is to work is given in Matthew chapter 10. Here Jesus instructs his disciples on the proper form of Christian ministry. His instruction covers a broad range of important issues when conducting ministry. One of those issues is the free nature of ministry related speech. The following is the key text.

The key verse from this passage is number 8. Freely you all received, so freely give.

This covers not just speech, but all needs as well. This is a high calling and the need to speak freely is just one part.

Curiously, this passage ended with a repeat of the call to Free Speech. If someone won't listen to your free speech, leave them, shaking the dust off your feet. In other words, if someone won't let you speak freely, then you need to leave, shaking off the dust as you go.

This passage is profound from a prophetic perspective because it maps to the era just after the protestant reformation. The Copyright law of 1709 was in part an enabler that allowed the gospel to be spread because it allowed speech to be free. The undoing of that law is why it is time to leave this Babylonian system.

Paul, who would end up writing most of the New Testament was also keen to only deliver speech that was free. He wrote nearly an entire chapter on the subject, the very first verse of that chapter asks a series of rhetorical questions, all have a 'yes' answer.

Was Paul free? Yes Did Paul charge a fee for his ministry or his materials? No.

Of course Paul would explain there is a right to charge, that Moses had so instructed about this right and that the other disciples were using this right. But, Paul explained he was running a race to win and to win that race, with the largest number of salvations possible, he could not charge anything for his message.

When Jesus had explained how to conduct ministry he was clear, don't charge. Now Paul comes along and explains why. Charging for anything to do with ministry hinders that ministry. It hinders the Gospel of Christ from doing the work it was sent to do.

Did Paul win his race? Yes. We still read his works. His speech became most of what we know of as the New Testament. He has had a larger audience, by far, than nearly any other man in history except perhaps for some of his peers from the Bible itself.

Curiously, Paul's nemesis in ministry was Peter, Peter apparently did charge for ministry in some manner. His warning was basically don't be greedy for the money that ministry can bring.¹

The use of copyrights, no matter what law may govern their granting and use, is fundamentally at odds with the call to ministry. Jesus did not leave room for paid speech, and Paul explains in other passages we have not looked at here that paid ministry is impure and though legal under the Law of Moses, is not effective in spreading the Gospel.

Copyrights, on ministry materials, in essentially any medium, are a form of restriction on duplication so the holder of the copyright can charge a fee for their use. Even if a fee is not charged, the use of a copyrighted work for ministry communications stops legal duplication and is counter to these and several other New Testament passages.

Notice that I've introduced a new term. Duplication is the process by which communication is shared. The calls in scripture to share the Gospel are in fact calls to duplicate the message for others. From a modern technical perspective we are called to freely duplicate the messages that we have freely received

Because copyright is now granted in America automatically without any further action on the part of someone in ministry it is important for people truly called into ministry to take specific steps to opt out of the copyright system so that those ministry messages can be freely duplicated.

Notes On Formats

So far in this report I've made little distinction between the written word and other forms of communication. There is no moral distinction between these forms, but there are differences in law.

The law accepts a looser understanding of copying for written words than it does for the visual and sound media. This is because the law establishing how words could be used was crafted in an era when the reasons and consequences of copyrights were better understood. In practical terms most book publishers today use the more modern standards, ignoring the old concept of Fair Use. Most publishers will not accept a manuscript for publication without written permission from every single quoted source.

From a ministry perspective, though, there is no difference between a spoken word, music, or visual media of various types. All should be shared as the New Testament demands. If your words need a special release from you in order for them to be duplicated then your message is hindered and so is the Gospel that is carried along by those same words.

The challenge, of course, is two fold. Can we answer the call to communicate in a way intended for duplicating? If we do answer Jesus' call, how do we do that since copyright, normally a restriction on duplication, is always granted implicitly?

Before looking at solutions as to how to opt out of the copyright problem, let's consider some specific examples found in every day ministry in the United States. For each example, think about how the supposed ministry meets the Biblical standard for ministry.

Bible Publishing

Certainly the most important ministry message is the same one we've been quoting from: The Bible.

Pick up nearly any modern English translation of the Bible and you will find, at least, a copyright notice and a year when the copyright was obtained.

My copy of the New King James Version has a series of copyright notices on the copyright page. The following is a facsimile of the page:

© Copyright 1996
Broadman & Holman Publishers
Nashville, Tennessee
All Rights Reserved

The Holy Bible, New King James Version
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The New King James Bible, New Testament
Copyright © 1979 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
The New King James Bible, New Testament and Psalms
Copyright © 1980 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

© Copyright 1983, 1985, Holman Bible Publishers
Nashville, Tennessee
All Rights Reserved.

The actual page continues with ISBN numbers for different types of covers and notes on the logos. That information is not interesting here.

The most important line is at the very top. The copyright symbol, the word, and the year, are the typical copyright mark. This is the traditional way to warn off people that this work is copyrighted. Of course after 1976, this would be implied even if it was missing. The year, in this example 1996, was once quite important. The copyright law says how many years the restriction on duplication remains after the copyright is granted. Traditionally this was 14 years with a possible 14 year extension if the original author was still alive at the 14 year mark.

In 1998 the Disney Company funded changes in the copyright law that changed the duration of copyright from 75 to 95 years. Disney did not want Micky Mouse passing into the Public Domain.

The American Congress demonstrated they could be bought for a proper fee, which Disney had supplied. The change, from 75 to 95 years is not what it seems. Most legal scholars believe copyrights are now effectively perpetual. Why? Because before the 20 year extension is out, there will be another 20 year extension, paid for by Disney, yielding a 115 year copyright duration. This will likely happen on into perpetuity.

Because of perpetual copyright the year of the notice in the above cited Bible is not important. The copyright will never expire. Some publishers know this and you occasionally find works without a year at all, only a copyright notice and the holder of the copyright.

You should immediately wonder, what does Micky Mouse have to do with Bible publishing? Everything. The intended consequence of Disney's action was to permanently remove any information from making it into the public domain. Bibles no longer enter the public domain, just like Micky Mouse is not in the public domain.

Compare this to the late 1700s. Bibles published in that era, under a 14 year copyright, would soon leave the monopoly publishers control and could then be legally copied by anyone. Publishing works out of copyright was in fact a big business since it made works available inexpensively to anyone.

Question: Is this a no-limit, copyrighted work, ministry?

Let's at least answer this question with an observation. Giving away Bibles is probably the purest form of ministry. It is possible to do this as a ministry, for free, as the Gideons prove. Published Bibles, available in book stores, is at best an impure ministry, something Paul would have likely avoided.

The reason copyright is granted is to provide a time when publishers have exclusive right to their work in order to recover the cost of producing the work. 14 years was the traditional length in the English world. Curiously, the costs of commercial publishing equipment are required by IRS regulations to be recovered in 7 years, so the traditional 14 years provides for double the length of time for publishers to recover profit.

As a practical matter nearly all books have useful commercial life spans under 6 months after that length of time the public is no longer interested in purchasing a work and the publisher has no incentive to keep the book in print.

Because Bibles are reference works, they have useful commercial lives longer than 6 months, but they still only last about a decade. For various reasons Bible Translations remain popular for about 10 years before they are supplanted. They are not commercially viable in perpetuity.

The traditional answer of a short copyright period was seen as a compromise to the Bible's pure standard of sharing information for free. The compromise being a short time when the publisher had to hurry and make a profit, before the public could use that work for their own benefit.

Stated biblically, any copyright time above zero years is a compromise from the Biblical mandate. When the copyright expires is when the work finally reaches the Biblical model for ministry.

With a perpetual copyright, something the Bible covered above is now under, there will never be a time when the Bible will be available for anyone to share in their own ministry. There is never a time when a Bible with this type of copyright notice will finally meet the Bible's standard for ministry. Even if the copyright notice was completely omitted, the 1976 law says it would still remain under the rules of an automatic copyright system.

Ministry Tapes and CDs

Probably the most popular, inexpensive, form of mass ministry for the past 30 years has been the cassette tape. The format has been recently supplanted by the audio CD, but the change in format does not change the typical ministry use.

A message is recorded, typically live in a ministry setting, and then copies are massed produced with tape or CD duplicating equipment. Tapes are then made available as a way to extend the reach of the message.

Probably the biggest and most well known ministry using this format is Focus on the Family. Focus does several different types of materials, one of the most popular is audio tapes of their radio programs.

The following is the copyright notice from one particular Focus Tape, actually what I consider to be one of top 1 percent of all programs ever done by Focus. (Call them up, order a copy. It is free.)

I, ISAAC TAKE YOU REBEKAH
(Dr. Ravi Zacharais)
CS619/5157 (Continued)
Copyright (C)(P) 1991, 1997 Focus on the Family

All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
Tapes are distributed for consumer use only and not for resale.
Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995

Of course the media is not the same as a printed Bible, but the message is still ministry. Tapes of this sort, and from all other tape related ministries bring on an additional dimension.

A pastor at a pulpit, or a host on a radio show, has already likely asked for and received funding of some sort in order to advance the ministry. Now, the request itself was of questionable purity, but where ever the funding came from, the funding is there.

This source of known funding adds complexity to how we should compare the copyright notice to the Biblical standard for ministry.

In the case of tapes like this, the ministry is already funded from some other source. Someone has already supplied the building, the equipment, and even money for salaries to deliver the ministry message. There is a partnership going on where the maker of the tape is in partnership with someone else funding the ministry. This is not a "from scratch" activity which the Bible publishers case might be.

This source of funding is what was implied when Jesus told his disciples to take no money, no extra clothes with them. Jesus will cause those things to be provided as we walk out our ministry call. If the call is to produce tapes, then the funding will be there also. This is, of course, what is going on at Focus. The flow of funds is there and the tapes are produced as an outward expression of that ministry call.

This particular tape adds complexity that helps clarify this discussion. "Tapes are distributed for consumer use only and not for resale."

This addition begins to touch on what a full ministry related notice should be. I give Focus credit for at least touching on the problem. But, it begs several questions.

Can I make a copy to give to a friend, to help learn about Genesis chapter 24, the subject of this tape?

This is a hard question. Traditionally, like in the 1970s, home made copies of cassette tapes were Fair Use. The industry did not care because the tapes were each of less quality so it could not be done indefinitely.

Recent changes in the law make home made copies a dubious activity. The copyright law is now used as a weapon of the media mafia, Disney's industry consortiums, being the most well known example. Though Focus would not do this, the practice of home made copies is itself dangerous.

Home made copies are, though, within the bounds of ministry. Following the models of Acts 2 and 4, we are to share our possessions. When I make a copy for a friend. Who am I helping? Both Focus and my friend. I am bringing them together by my act of making a copy. To have a pure ministry anyone in ministry needs to explicity allow everyone to make copies like this.

Can I put a 5 cent price on this tape, currently in my collection, and sell it at a garage sale?

This question needs an Intellectual Property lawyer to answer, for about $300.00 an hour. So tossing the tape is probably safer, even if it would have been an impure ministry to sell it for 5 cents.

How about selling it for $5.00? Should the price matter to the question?

Many ministries are afraid that someone will take their message and turn around and sell it for a profit. This fear is widespread throughout the American Christian world. It belies an underlying fear that their own ministry is really commercial and what they really want is no competition.

It would be a remarkable setup indeed, if someone selling tapes but without access to the funds flow from the radio station could survive in a business of selling Focus' tapes for very long. Even with this commercial problem, Jesus actually commanded that we not care about this situation.

If someone wants to steal a copy of your stuff you are supposed to give him even more. Clauses like "don't make copies for resale" or as more commonly stated, don't make commercial copies are expressly forbidden by Jesus for anyone who follows him, in ministry or not.

The clause on the Focus tape is For Consumer Use Only. This is carefully chosen to achieve the same end. It also reveals a conception of ministry as a group of priests with inside knowledge over a bunch of ignorant outsiders. This is not the model in the New Testament. We, all, are a royal priesthood. There is no distinction in this regard. Consumers are not a biblical concept.

The redemptive heart of what is going on with "no resale" or "no commercial use" clauses is the fact that the producer of the tape was trying to be pure in ministry. They gave you the tape. They also want you to be pure and give it away on the same terms they gave it to you. How to say this in few words is the lesson of this article. You don't get there by saying non commercial use only or consumer use only.

Christian Music

Christian music is also a form of ministry. Much of the Bible was originally poetry, and likely sung for the edification of the original listeners. Scripture does not make a distinction between a music call and any other type of ministry call. Music crosses all of the various specific ministry calls.

Christian music is also very popular, with nearly everyone exposed to recorded christian music in their normal routine. Either as a part of a church service, or on the radio, or on CDs at home.

Christian music is also in a peculiar position of being close to the same area as the RIAA, the same group suing people over illegal copies of commercial music. The influence of the RIAA, a form of media mafia, is now being felt within the Christian music world.

Of course people producing Christian music must determine if they are in Babylon or if they follow Jesus and keep to his words in the Bible.

For years most Christian music has been released with the standard copyright notices typically of other media types. This alone is a problem, but recently, the copyright notices have been growing warts in keeping with Disney's changes to the copyright law in 1998.

In order to illustrate this further, I've reproduced the copyright notices from a CD called "The Sound of Heaven" by Terry MacAlmon.

There are two places on the disk's cover where text shows up that matters. The first block of text is visible on the outside, through the shrink wrap. It says the following:

(p)&(c) 2004 Terry MacAlmon Ministries. Marketed and Manufactured by INO records, LLC. Distributed by Word Distribution. All rights reserved. All lyrics used by permission. International copyright secured. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable law. Printed in the USA.

This notices includes the redundant Unauthorized sharing is a violation of applicable law. This is a hint of what is to come on the inside of the cover. After buying the disk and opening the case we find the following:

Thankyou for buying this CD and for supporting the artists, songwriters, musicians and others who've created it and made it possible. Please remember that this recording and artwork are protected by copyright law. Since you don't own the copyright it's not yours to distribute. Please don't use Internet services that promote the illegal distribution of copyrighted music, give away copies of CDs or lend CDs to others for copying. It's hurting the artists who created it. It has the same effect as stealing a CD from a store without paying for it. Federal law provides for severe criminal and civil penalties for unauthorized reproduction, distribution or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. Again, thankyou for your support.

If you've followed my reasoning so far you should instantly recognize that this is not ministry as the New Testament defines it. It is a commercial endeavor of the most crass form.

Most Christian music is commercial, and far from ministry. So, the first point is the hypocrisy of calling this a ministry. It should have been called the Terry MacAlmon Media Company or something similar.

There are several additional problems that this disk raises that go strongly counter to scripture. Understanding them helps to clarify what should be said when someone produces a ministry item like a music disk.

The very first point is a thankyou for supporting through the purchase of this disk, the people who produced this disk.

This is an inversion (some say perversion) of how ministry is to work. This is selling the word of God for a profit, it is at best an impure form of ministry.

Paul said ministry was like parenting. The parents were to store up for their children, not the other way around.

Paul was raising Christian babies and he was the one supplying their needs. This is what anyone called into ministry is doing. They are helping others grow up in knowledge of some aspect of Jesus' created world. This can either be some aspect of the people themselves, or of the world around them.

The first sentence on this CD's block of important text should have said something like this: "We hope this disk can be a blessing to you and your family and friends as you use it in your own life to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

The third sentence on the inside disk says, "Since you don't own the copyright, it is not yours to distribute." This is in fact a lie.

There are something like 10,000 different copyright owners in a typical distribution of Linux, and nobody distributing Linux owns the copyrights. The right to distribute, or duplicate, or share, a copyrighted work is something that must be granted by the copyright holder. You never need to own the copyright itself. To be more correct this sentence needs to say they are being bullies and have not granted purchasers the right to make copies. Even then, the law allows certain types of copies so they should have given up on this thought completely. The language being used here is typical of someone in Mafia.

The second to the last sentence paraphrases American federal law on the matter of authorized copies. It is against Federal law to make unauthorized copies of sound recordings. This is true. But, the sentence is an appeal to American federal law. This is an appeal that the Bible clearly tells Christians not to make. The following is a summary of Paul's take on the subject of using an appeal to law.

Paul speaks to those making such recordings, that the appeal to law is simply wrong. It is better to be wronged than make such an appeal. In this case the effect of Paul's instruction is that as the producer of such a disk you should let people make copies. Even if it hurts.

When someone makes such an appeal to law against us as Terry is doing on this disk, we as Christians also have some responsibilities. We looked at this text earlier, but look at it again and think about how we're to answer Terry's appeal.

If what Terry is asking is that we limit ourselves. Instead of say 2 copies, or 5, that we only make 1, then the passage just citied suggests Christians limit even more and in this case it would mean making zero copies. I interpret that to mean no copies, don't even keep the disk.

A final note on this. In all the passages that I'm quoting from for this argument, the Bible's text is making a statement about what is needed for the Holy Spirit to show up and accompany the ministry with signs and wonders.

Copyright notices, appeals to law, and all similar endeavors are sure fire ways to quench the Spirit. Whatever anointing a ministry might have, it would be stronger without these copyright notices and it would be stronger without the appeals to law.

A reviewer of this article actually pointed out that MacAlmon's music lost anointing at the same time they added these notices to the disks. I'm not surprised. If he wanted more anointing he'd go the other way, as I explain below.

Christian Books

Christian books are interesting because they are popular and they have been around since nearly the invention of the printing press.

Generally speaking the purpose of a book is to spread some message, some understanding, broadly into the Christian community.

It is clear that Christian books are to take a secondary role to the Bible itself, but it is also quite clear that it is possible to greatly aid someone studying the Bible with a well written Christian book.

The printing press is not a particularly ideal device for producing Christian books because it produces books with what for most Christians is a significant cost. It did, though, significantly lower the cost of making books compared to making copies by hand.

In the era when the printing press was the only tool for copying a book the Christian ideal of supplying free copies was recognized within the Christian community. The usual answer was the "Church Library" or something similar. Even today many churches have a library filled with Christian books so people who cannot afford a book, or for books no longer in print, there is a place to go to find the book.

This was perhaps not as ideal as owning your own copy, but since the books were in a public place, a "commons" and were accessible to anyone at just about any time, the library was a good approximation of the Biblical ideal. (Even more so than a private library, since the burden of caring for a potentially huge number of books was carried by everyone involved in the commons.)

The copyright system, the old one, with short duration, is probably a good approximation of the Biblical ideal, but at the heart of it is a compromise. Because someone pays for a copy, it is not hard to increase that payment slightly so the author receives a little money with each copy. This works only as long as a copyright has not expired since after expiration the only publisher that can remain in business is the one with the lowest cost of making copies. All other things equal, the publisher that voluntarily pays an author has a higher cost than the one that does not.

But, technology is advancing in stunning ways. Computers zero out the cost of copying entire books. With the right computer screen it is possible to produce an image of a printed book that is as easy to look at as ink on paper. If technology advancement continues as it has then nearly all of what is now printed material will eventually be available on paper quality computer screens. When that eventually happens the marginal cost of reproduction for each copy becomes zero, so there will not longer be a fee paid for each copy, and there will no longer be an easy way to slightly increase that fee in order to pay the original author.

The whole system of publishing books where the author gets a slight fee does not hold up on electronic distribution systems.

A Specific Example

Nearly everyone who has been around church for awhile has met a worship group that has produced a music CD of a worship set. These are not technically difficult to produce, nearly any computer can be used for audio editing and producing a master. Typically, the worship team or church or a friend will fund the duplication of say 100 or perhaps 500 copies of the group's work. Those CDs are given away as a ministry to friends and family and sometimes those disks are sold as a fund raiser.

I dare say there are two different motives for producing such a disk. The first motive is as a response to a call by Jesus himself. When this is the motive the worship team typically gives away the disks since this spreads the word of the Lord recorded in the disks themselves. Much of the Bible itself is in song and often the rhema word of the Lord comes as song, even today.

The other motive behind producing disks like this is financial. Even if the word is genuine and from Jesus, the producers have a different heart. They hope that somewhere along the line there will be a "discovery" and a contract with a recording label to produce a regular commercial music CD. The hope is for an opportunity