Gospel Prism

Bob Kauflin and Tim Challies have written about that age old debate about copyrights. Like Bob and Tim, most Christian sI know believe it is a sin to copy music for others without exception. Tim Challies puts it pretty bluntly:

If you have a hard drive or MP3 player filled with pirated music, you owe it to yourself, to the rightful owners, to the copyright holders and to God to erase it. I might venture so far as to suggest that you ought to purchase that music yourself since you have already benefited from the enjoyment of it. At the very least, repent of your sin, ask for forgiveness, and commit to obeying the laws of our land. Commit to obeying God.

But is this always a sin? The text that is usually referred to is Romans 13:1: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.� But we also know that the Bible has many instances where the person is not subject to governing authorities, and therefore an exception has been made. Rahab lied to the government’s authorities when they came looking for the Israelite spies in Joshua 2. And then later in Hebrews 11:31, her act is described as an act of faith and not a sin. David ran from governmental authorities (Saul). He did not merely turn himself in and repent of his sins. The prophets went against the governmental authorities and continued to preach despite prohibitions against it. Jesus went against the authorities of his day, along with the apostles.

In modern times, there are people smuggling Bibles into places like China and North Korea. These are illegal activities in their respective countries. Are they sinning? This past year, a Palo Alto legislator of the California Assembly tried to get a law passed that made it illegal to spank your child. So if the law was passed, would that mean parents must submit to authorities and no longer spank children because the law says so? Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, there must be discernment used in its proper context on such laws.

Now back to copyrights. I remember this issue when I was in college. We were using transparencies to sing corporately, before CCLI. Some pastors would tell us that we were sinning against God by projecting the songs to sing because we did not ask each individual copyright owner for permission to sing such songs. The whole audience was instructed that to do this would be to engage in sing. Better not to sing any praise at all than to sing songs illegally. Thank God for CCLI, but what if there was no CCLI? Does that mean Christians all around the world were and would have continually been in abject rebellion and hypocrisy as they sang songs to the Lord? Where is there wisdom and discernment during such times?

In terms of recorded music, I must admit, I do not go around to police people’s music. I do not ask people, “Were those legally downloaded.� As for myself, I buy my music simply because I am in ministry and know that such things are watched closely and I want to be above reproach. I also know that the musicians need to be paid, so I understand. But is there any place for exceptions and discernment. If I went to Africa for example to and had some music that I wanted to share with people who have no access to songs, is it sinful to copy them and give it to them?

To unilaterally say, erase everything, repent of your sin, seems to make a huge judgment that does not take into account any context whatsoever. That’s why ultimately, I love free software (open source) and people like Lawrence Lessig who is fighting for the freedom of electronic media.

The Christian recording industry and the movie industry needs to change. They could be revolutionary and Kingdom thinking. They could have a monthly subscription that allows people to download as many songs as they want and through that, everyone would sign up. They could make it freely available to be copied so long as it is used for Kingdom purposes (missions, band practices and listening, church worship background music, etc.). If they did, we’d sign up in a flash. But as it is right now, we’re back in the transparency era all over again. As soon as the screen flashes, “Exalt the Lord Our God,� and people are worshipping God, the music morality police is in the back waving their hands shouting, “Shut that screen off, you’re sinning! Repent right now.�