1. Copyright
and
the Kingdom
how copyright works and its
implications for world missions
version 1.0

2. contents
what everyone should know about copyright.....3 Have you ever considered how significantly the rise of
“digital” has changed everything? It is now possible for
what everyone should know about world missions.....4 more people than ever before to create and distribute
the classic model for world missions.....5 massive amounts of content, at virtually no cost. This
creates a tremendous opportunity for the advance of
getting legal permission – the “classic” way.....6 God's Kingdom all over the world.
an “open” model for world missions.....7 Content, however, is directly affected by copyright law
and copyright is an important matter. It raises some
getting legal permission – the “open” way.....8
questions, like: How does copyright work? How does
comparing the classic and “open” models.....9 copyright affect world missions? What are the
implications of restrictions on discipleship resources for
the Christian Commons...10
the global church? How do restrictions on translations
find out more...11 of the Word of God affect believers in the nearly 7,000
languages of the world?
“Copyright and the Kingdom” is designed to provide a
brief, visual overview of the world of copyright law and
its implications for world missions.
This work is based on the book The Christian
Commons – www.thechristiancommons.com.
Disclaimer: The information in this document is provided for general illustrative purposes only. Nothing herein constitutes legal or
professional advice. The information provided herein does not replace a formal, legal opinion, and users who seek advice as to the rights
involved in any intellectual property licensing transaction should consult with a licensed attorney.

3. 1998 – life + 70 years
what everyone should know
about copyright 1976 – 75 years (or life) Modern copyright law was invented over 300 years ago
+ 50 years to maximize the economic value of a creative work by
granting specific rights to the creator of the work. Once
these rights expire, the work passes into the Public
Domain, where there are no copyright protections.
copyright basics Copyright originally only lasted for 14 years (with an
 If you create it, you own it.* optional 14-year extension). Over time, however, the
 Copyright protection happens automatically, when the work is created—you do not length of copyright has been extended repeatedly. This
need to register the copyright first. lengthening of copyright has been embraced by the
 If you own it, copyright grants you exclusive rights to the work: “all rights reserved.” church with little discussion on the implications for
 The rights preserved for a copyright holder include: copying & redistributing the work, ministry or the theology of intellectual property ownership
creating derivatives (including translations) of the work, publicly performing or and discipleship resources.
displaying the work.
 You must get permission (usually as a license) to use what someone else owns. Many works have little (if any) commercial value within
 U.S. copyright law is provided for in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. only a few years after they are published, but they are
 Copyright law is remarkably similar around the world: by default, no one can legally do still under copyright for over a century: the life of the
much of anything with someone else's content for many decades after the owner's author + 70 years (or 50 years, in some countries). As a
death, unless they get a license from the owner (or the owner's heirs) to do so. result, many works of the 20th century are “orphan
works”, which makes it nearly impossible to license
those works since they may still be under copyright.
1831 – 28 years [+ 14 years]
Further, many old works that no longer have commercial
value may have tremendous ministry value, particularly if
1790 – 14 years [+ 14 years, translated into a minority language.
optional extension] length of copyright in the U.S. over time (simplified)
Note: leveraging copyright for financial gain is not immoral or
unbiblical. It is a legitimate approach to funding ministry.
*There are limited exceptions to this, such as in contexts pertaining to “work for hire” agreements and scope of employment.
3

4. what everyone should know
about world missions
least-reached people groups
Completing Jesus' mandate to “make disciples of every
people group” (Matthew 28:19) includes providing
discipleship resources in the heart language of every
people group, so they can grow spiritually. This is an
immense challenge because the 7 billion people in the
world are not evenly distributed among the nearly 7,000
languages of the world.
The linguistically “least of these” are the millions of
people who speak a language having less than 10,000
speakers. They comprise 0.1% of the world's
population and so tend to be forgotten or left for last.
But they urgently need discipleship resources.
Many believers are ready today to start translating
the linguistically existing discipleship resources for effective use in their
'least of these' own languages. Copyright law, however, prevents them
from legally doing so, because translation of content
requires permission. Permission is virtually impossible
for them to acquire because of massive legal, financial,
cultural, linguistic and technical obstacles. They are
locked out.
4
data source: Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Sixteenth. Dallas, TX, USA: SIL International, 2009. http://www.ethnologue.com. map source: Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net) and Global Mapping International (www.gmi.org)

5. the classic model for world missions
The traditional approach to meeting the need for
discipleship resources in the world's thousands of
languages has not changed significantly since the
invention of Gutenberg's printing press, over 500 years
ago. It works like this:
 Content is created and (usually) translated.
 The content is stored in a “silo” that functions as a
controlled-access library.
 A distribution portal makes the content available in
a read-only manner to the consumer.
 The consumer consumes the content and provides
analytics back into the system.
This classic model is in use in “brick-and-mortar”
libraries, and has been imported into the digital world
as well (e.g. Amazon's Kindle library). It works well for
its intended purpose: to provide read-only access to
advantage disadvantages copyright-restricted content for a small number of
 provides read-only access to  tends toward inequality—smaller languages are often lowest priority people in a limited number of (usually) large languages.
pre-packaged, “all rights does not scale well—becomes top-heavy and inefficient with size, due in large

But it does not scale well as a model for reaching
reserved” content for people in a part to the need for managing copyright restrictions for hundreds of millions of
limited number of (usually) larger everyone, everywhere, in every language with
people, in thousands of languages, and in dozens of legal jurisdictions around
languages the world, for each and every use of tens of thousands of resources. urgently-needed discipleship resources.
 provides maximum financial  does not provide what is needed—the global church is not given legal
incentive for creation of works freedom to translate, complete, adapt, revise, repurpose, redistribute, or use the
content effectively 5

6. getting legal permission – the “classic” way
Think of a discipleship resource that could be useful for
the spiritual growth of Christians around the world—
maybe a Bible study or training course. If they want to
legally translate it and adapt it for use in their language,
they face a dizzying number of steps that require
significant time, resources, and legal expertise on their
part.
Getting legal permission to translate and use someone
else's discipleship resource the “classic” way takes so
much time and effort that it often just does not happen.
This is especially true when there are linguistic, cultural,
geographic, legal, and technological barriers in the mix.
All too often, the sheer number of steps in the process
creates such a bottleneck that the process grinds to a
halt. The global church is frequently unable to clear the
legal hurdles that prevent them from taking existing
discipleship resources and making them effective in
their own language and culture. Breaking the law and
hoping not to get caught is not an ethical solution.
But there is another way...
6
photo credit: Edward Townend, cc by

7. an “open” model for
world missions What do Wikipedia, the Linux operating system, and
Open Street Map all have in common? Two things:
1. the content in each of these “open collaboration”
projects is released from copyright restrictions
under an open license
2. the thousands of people who create the content in
each project do so for a purpose they consider
greater than making money from the product.
What if the church adopted this new model of “open
collaboration” as a means of equipping believers in
every language with adequate discipleship resources?
a license for freedom! By working together as the body of Christ all over the
world, we can collectively create a core of quality
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike discipleship resources in every language, more rapidly
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 and at far less cost than would otherwise be possible.
You are free:
Three things are needed for this to happen:
 to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
 to Remix — to adapt the work  open-licensed discipleship resources (content)
 to make commercial use of the work*  open-source tools (software)
Under the following conditions:
 a willingness for people and organizations to
 Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner
specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that collaborate openly (process).
*Why not include a “non-commercial use only” restriction? suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
While it seems that such a restriction would be a good thing for free  Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this This new model for missions is already in
content, it critically hinders the reach of a discipleship resource. In work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the use, and served by online translation
addition to being too restrictive, it prevents good things from same or similar license to this one. platforms like Door43, online at
happening, is ambiguous, unnecessary, and makes the global
www.door43.org.
church work for nothing.
7

8. getting legal permission – the “open” way
What if a content creator wants to remove everything
that hinders and allow the global church to freely use
and build upon a discipleship resource they have
created, for their unhindered spiritual growth? What is
the best way for that to happen?
Instead of requiring each person who wants to use it in
their language to contact them for each and every use
of the resource, they could pre-clear the entire global
church to use it in any way they need. This would
remove the legal bottleneck and open the door for
effective ministry without any obstacles.
By releasing a discipleship resource under a Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, anyone
can translate, adapt, build on, redistribute, and use the
resource without any restrictions. They only need to
agree to the two conditions of the license: give credit
where credit is due (pointing a link back to the owner's
website) and release anything they create from it under
the same license. In this way, the resource gets “locked
open” and what was released by the creator of the
original resource as free and unrestricted, stays free
and unrestricted forever, for everyone.
8

9. comparing the classic and “open” models
The classic model for world missions has as its final
goal a finished product, like a book. The product is
classic model “open” model generally created by a small group of “experts” with
limited direct involvement in the project by others. Every
content licensing “all rights reserved” “some rights reserved”
aspect of the project tends to be closely monitored and
limitations of use very restricted unrestricted (with conditions) highly controlled, from the creation of the content to the
distribution of the finished work. This incurs a high
metaphor limited-access library unwalled garden (i.e. the “Christian Commons”) degree of overhead, driving cost of production up, and
use of content read-only (“consume”) read-write (“consume + create”) significantly limiting the reach of the content. The model
tends to “give a fish” (i.e. a finished, “all rights
end goal distribution of pre-packaged content derivatives built from content reserved” product to consume), but often does not
extend beyond that.
content creation closed, insider-only open collaboration of self-selecting individuals
The “open”model is dependent on open-licensed
sphere of control every aspect of content creation, distribution, source of original content
content that legally permits a large, self-selecting, and
and use
geographically-distributed group of intrinsically-
cost extremely expensive extremely inexpensive motivated people to work together in the project. The
(built by cognitive surplus)
source of the content is controlled, but derivative works
reach top down, no plans for smallest 1/4th of any & every language, no matter the size are encouraged and are evaluated on their own merit—
languages
as they were before copyright was invented (like during
management overhead massive, increasingly centralized, top-heavy with minimal, distributed, decentralized the Reformation) and are still, for works not under
increased reach copyright (the Public Domain). The end goal is both a
Biblical foundation “If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this product (like a translated book) and a process (the
too much if we reap material things from you?” right, but we endure anything rather than put an continued revision and maintenance of the translation
—1 Corinthians 9:11 ESV obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.” over time). In this regard, the focus is “teaching them to
—1 Corinthians 9:12 ESV
fish” (and giving them the tools to do so without
restriction).
9

10. the Christian Commons
Nearly 2,000 years ago, some Christians faced a
significant problem: they were in great need and had no
The Christian Commons is a means of meeting those needs. The Church's solution
growing core of open- licensed
discipleship resources that is to the problem was gracious, voluntary, sacrificial, and
collectively owned and built by extremely effective:
the global church.
Organizations and individuals Now the full number of those who believed were of
have unrestricted access to
this “unwalled garden” of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the
content, as well as the legal things that belonged to him was his own, but they
freedom to translate,
adapt, revise, re-
had everything in common... There was not a
purpose, redistribute, needy person among them... —Acts 4:32,34 ESV
and use the content—
without restriction and Today, the Church faces the same problem in the
without needing to ask spiritual realm: believers urgently need discipleship
anyone for permission.
resources to foster their spiritual growth. Releasing
discipleship resources under open licenses (like a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike) effectively
puts them perpetually into the “Christian Commons.”
This “unwalled garden” of discipleship resources is held
the classic model: funding & legal agreements in common by the entire global church as a dynamic,
In the classic model, read-only content is
made available to consumers as finished growing core of spiritual content. Anyone, anywhere can
products. Funding from these products help translate and make these “open” discipleship
(whether sales or donations to the
organization as the project owner resources effective in any language, in less time, with
or exclusive distributor) goes less expense, and without any restrictions.
back into the organization.
Relationships between Together, we can provide adequate discipleship
organizations are governed resources, in any language, for every people group.
by legal agreements that
grant formal permission to
use content in specified ways.
10

11. find out more
Want to find out more about the “open” approach to world missions? because everyone should have
A detailed overview is provided in the book The Christian Commons, adequate discipleship resources
available in print and (free!) ebooks, at www.thechristiancommons.com. in their own language.
On the website, you can also find ways to connect with others who are for free.
part of the “open” world missions community. Join us!
Distant Shores Media
PO Box 2314
Minneapolis, MN 55311-7314
+1 763.688.3572
© 2012 Distant Shores Media info@dsmedia.org
This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. www.distantshoresmedia.org
Please provide attribution to www.distantshoresmedia.org.