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Christian Music & File Sharing
- 04/27/04
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The New York Times reported this week that Christian music is “disproportionately popular” in the online filesharing services. For example, last month almost 350,000 people downloaded songs by Relient K and over 2 million people are offering Switchfoot songs. This is Gospel Music Association week in Nashville and apparently “high on the agenda [of the industry] will be the findings of a new online marketing study commissioned by the Gospel Music Association that suggests that Christian teenagers are nearly as likely to download unauthorized files as their non-Christian peers.” Experts suggest that Christian music is so popular because “fans want to collect every song, and because they can’t always find them at the mall.” The perceived scarcity of Christian music seems to convince people they have license to steal it.
Isn’t it just like Christians to stab other Christians in the back? You can say all you want about the record companies making most of the money, leaving very little for the artists, but the fact remains that downloading music is every bit as illegal as stealing a CD from the shelves of Best Buy. If you wouldn’t walk out of the store with a CD you did not pay for, why would you download it? The answer is obvious - no one can see you! It seems like an invisible, victimless crime.
Michael Janke at CMCentral.com has written an excellent article about The Hard Truth About File Sharing. If you are unsure what to believe about this issue, I suggest reading his article.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (10)
Unfortunatly I have been guilty in the past of ripping some songs off of the net. I have stopped that process now and in fact I use iTunes to get songs for 99 cents instead.
And somewhat on the subject. I would like to thank all the groups that have made their hits available to services like Wal-Mart (.88) and iTunes (.99) and Musicmatch (.99).Of course, most of the BIG named groups don’t do that. You have to purchase the 13 crummie songs to get the one good song. And while pop and country have lowered their album prices to $14.99. Most “Christian” groups still sell theirs for $17.99 and up. Could GREED and COVETOUSNESS be involved? Surely not.
Stand up and preach it.
I say, forget saying Christians stabbing Christians in back… How about stop being Hypocrits…
It kills me when a brother tells me about the new game they are playing or the new music that they downloaded. My first question is alway… “Where did you buy it?”
Whoa.. put the soap box back.
Good post!!!
His, referred from TheIrvines.com…Sam
whether it’s right or wrong is too hard a question. (cries of “it’s stealing!” — well is it? but stealing what? intellectual property? is there a biblical view on ip? no? so how do you know it’s wrong?)whether it should be legal or illegal is easier.firstly, it’s always going to happen. Trying to stop it is like turning back the tides. That’s what happens: technology develops and things change. I see no reason why the record industry should have everything its own way by default. A hundred years ago, recording didn’t exist. How did music work then?They’ve had a very good ride selling recordings, made an awful lot of money on the back of this technology. Now the technology has moved on again, so maybe they should accept that and change the way they make money? (my prediction: recordings become loss leaders to attract fans to live shows / be used in films & adverts for serious money).
itunes and similar service providers have the right idea. It should be more convenient to buy the music than to steal it… that’s just common sense.
that’s just a point of view, the full argument can be more complicated than this of course.
Jez - I do not believe it is at all a difficult question. As long as the industry owns the recordings we are not at liberty to copy them and distribute them as we see fit. They pay for recording, distribution, etc and as long as they hold legal rights to the recordings we have no right to violate the law in that regard.
Whether it is easy or difficult to copy or purchase music has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of it.
AMEN.. PREACH-IT
if i buy something and let someone else listen to it is that wrong too if i have a bunch of friends and they all borrow my cd is that wrong if I am buying what their selling it becomes mine how can anyone tell me what to do with a product that i worked hard for? you give them your money,the money you worked very hard to get and now they can tell you what to do with the product you get these people should do some of the jobs i’ve had to do instead of sitting in an air conditioned room writing songs and playing guitars. how can you actually call that work?the bible says to labor with your hands that thing which is good if i buy something it should be mine end of story if i want to give it away it should be my right
My question is this, is it up to the industry to say that a particular group wants others to share their music, or should it be up to the group? There are many top names that have placed their names and open opinions on the air and on the web concerning how they feel. Just to name a few, Mercy Me, Apologetix, by the tree, 7th Day Slumber, and on and on. But would you expect someone to come over to your house and tell your mother she cannot give away her cookies that SHE slaved over? In the real world, what is the difference?
I briefly scanned the comments and see that some feel that downloading a song or copying it from a friend is a gray area of morality. This issue at first seems confusing because of the nature of electronic media and the ease with which movies, music and games can be copied and transferred. However, if one stops and thinks about it, you realize this is no different than photocopying a book and giving / selling it, dubbing a CD (or, if you’re older your vinyl LP) to a tape and giving / selling it, or copying a movie to a VHS tape and giving / selling it. There is a significant difference between copying songs etc. for your own personal use (e.g., you want to make your own best of the 90’s CD) versus copying songs and distributing them to others. Perhaps some feel that it is so minor an issue to download just a single song that costs only $0.99 and not pay for it. Somewhat like stealing a piece of penny candy from the store versus robbing the cash register. While the consequences of such actions differ dramatically, the heart motive behind the action is very much the same and is offensive to a Holy God (keeping in mind that this Holy God struck down Uzza for simply touching the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from falling). Stealing is still stealing.
I think some of the confusion comes from people not clearly understanding what they are purchasing when they download a song or buy a book or DVD. You are not buying actual ownership of that song, movie or book. You are buying a very limited right. That right is to only listen to the song, watch the movie or read the book. The ownership of the actual music, lyrics, manuscript and movies remains in the organization that sold it and its author / producer. When that organization sells you that media they are only selling you a very limited right to use and enjoy that media. Look at the back of any DVD cover or CD and you’ll see in very tiny print the terms under which you bought the movie or CD.
As someone suggested above, even if you could argue your way around whether downloading songs for which you have not paid is stealing, you cannot argue your way around the laws governing the sales, use and disemination of electronic media. The laws of the United States and Canada and most other countries are very clear on what is and is not an appropriate use of any form of media that is purchased by the consumer. God commands us to obey the laws of our government as He has put that government over us for our good and His glory.
>>Isn’t it just like Christians to stab other >>Christians in the back?
There’s really two sides to that coin. Consider, for example, the fact that all the major Christian labels are owned by major secular labels. These major secular labels employ very manipulative tactics— they knew exactly how to sell a piece of media to a mainline evangelical Christian: use of appropriate font, color schemes, photography techniques.
Furthermore, the production of the album— ever notice how contemporary Christian all sort of sounds… alike? If you don’t think so, take a step back and look at music as a whole. Nothing else sounds quite like the contemporary Christian music genre. These overreaching money-hungry record labels not only know how to package the music, but they know what the music ought to sound like in the first place, even down to what sort of compression and reverb to use when recording the snare drum.
Having worked in the food processing industry for quite some time, I have noticed that when someone learns how a marachino cherry is made, they never want to eat one again. It’s the same way with the “Christian” music industry, as I have been told by industry insiders.
It is difficult to discern just exactly who is screwing who when it comes to the issue of Christians illegally downloading Contemporary Christian music.