On the Specter of Copyright Hijacking

Here at Selling Jesus, we advocate that ministries release their content into the public domain. Among other reasons, we believe this to be the most consistent approach to Jesus’s command to “freely give” in Matthew 10:8. However, a question occasionally arises at this point: Couldn’t another party republish that content and claim it as their own? Further, couldn’t they then take legal action against the original creator who hadn’t claimed copyright? For lack of a more official term, I’ll refer to this as “copyright hijacking.” In this episode Conley Owens answers this common doubt and concludes that ministries should never hesitate to give freely by dedicating their content to the public domain. Read the article. ⁠⁠⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

Om Podcasten

We want to highlight and exalt the radical generosity of God’s heart, confront the commercialization of Christianity, promote the biblical teaching that ministry should be supported but never sold, explore the history of how we've gotten to this point where it's a respectable sin to monetize ministry, and take a deep dive in the Scripture’s teaching on the subject. Our evangelical cultural moment has a serious blind spot in this area, and we hope to be a voice of reform. And our priority is to take seriously what Jesus commanded in Matthew 10:8: “Freely you have received; freely give.”