2012
01.10

Keith Green’s Conviction

Keith Green is a hero of mine.  Most people who are aware of him are so because of the music that he produced in the late ’70s and early ’80s.  However, Green inspires me not so much because of his music, but because of the life he lived while making that music.  He was a very controversial figure in his day, for many reasons.  There is one controversy he was involved in that I would like to focus on.

In 1979 Green got out of the recording contract that he had with a prominent Christian music record label and began giving away his music for free.  Remember, this is in the pre-internet days, so Green actually took a loss mailing out free cassettes to anyone who wanted one.  He also stopped charging money for people to come to his concerts.  He did this because he believed that the music that he made was a work of ministry.  His music was a means for him to spread the Gospel of Christ that had changed his life from a burned out drug addict to a man filled with joy to the bursting.  He stopped selling cassettes and concert tickets because he came to the realization that by charging people money for these things, he was essentially selling the Gospel.  He believed that the Gospel was something that could not be sold, but was to be freely available to anyone who wanted to hear it.  And so Green and his family lived off of donations for the rest of his career until he died tragically in a plane crash in 1982.

Green was not a shy man, and when he made the decision to no longer sell his music he “encouraged” (read: pointed out that it was a moral obligation) other Christian artists of his day to do the same.  They rejected Green’s ideology wholesale, and the Christian music industry (and it is very much an industry) has remained largely unchanged to this day.

Brave New World

Today things are a little bit different than in Green’s time.  We are in the internet age, now.  That is not to say that things are better or worse, for I know how foolish it is to consider such a thing, but things are definitely different.  Napster created for us a brave new world, a world in which media of any kind is readily accessible at the click of a mouse.  BitTorrent further changed things by making the price of hosting media so small that it is virtually costless.  No longer is there a great cost to distributing media, for instead of having to mail physical media one can just post music, video, or text on the internet.  We have even seen Green’s vision of free music realized to a certain extent… but by secular artists like Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and Jonathan Coulton.

For these artists the donation system has become reality, and they are thriving on it.  They release their music without the constraints of normal copyright restrictions and allow people to distribute their music freely.  They do this because they want their art to be delivered to those who want to access it as easily as possible.  That is the true trademark of an artist.  Meanwhile, they make a living because people are passionate about what they do.  Fans make donations, buy physical merchandise, and support these artists at concerts because these artists create something that resonates with their fans.  Their songs speak the words that their audience could not articulate, and so a deep connection is formed between artist and audience.  How much more, then, should this apply to Christians and the Gospel?  Yet Christian artists and record labels by and large insist on holding onto archaic models of delivery  which ultimately set up the artists to fail.  But why?

We Need to Protect the Artist

The most common arguments I have heard against releasing music for free and without the restriction of traditional copyright is that these things are in place to protect the artist.  Firstly, there is the argument “the artist should be compensated for their work.”  After all, when you do *any* work, don’t you expect to be compensated?  This is a good argument, I will admit, but what I am proposing is not to let artists starve, but rather alter the means by which they are compensated.  Selling artwork that is part of ministry is wrong because what they are selling, at the end of the day, does not belong to them.  It belongs to God, and if Christians are going to claim that their work is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then they need to surrender ownership of that work to the Holy Spirit.  God intended us to spread His gospel, not to sell it, and so I think that the Holy Spirit’s desires in this case are clear.  So what then for the artist?  I have already mentioned a donation system, which many artists thrive under, but there is also the system of patronage.

In fact, many artists are, to a certain degree, already using this system.  Many Christian worship artists are currently employed on a permanent basis at a local church.  David Crowder works at University Baptist Church, Hillsong United is associated with Hillsong Church in Australia, Chris Tomlin was formerly with Austin Stone Community Church, Matt Redman is associated with Hillsong Church London, etc., etc.   If these artists could be compensated by their patron church with a salary, then what need would there be for selling their music?  It is true that churches are not notoriously lucrative employers, but artists could certainly make a comfortable living.  I believe that just as artists have an obligation to give away their music for the sake of the gospel, the Church has an obligation to support Christian ministries.  Systems of patronage and donations would fulfill both of these obligations.

Secondly, there is the argument, “copyright protects the integrity of artistic works, and therefore is necessary.”  This is, to a certain degree, true; copyright was originally intended for this purpose.  After all, you don’t want someone else making money off of something that you made.  In the case of the gospel, it really doesn’t matter if you give it away for free if someone else takes it and monetizes it.  However, traditional copyright has become in recent years a means for powerful organizations to sue the pants off of helpless people, and it restricts distribution unnecessarily.  Notice that I say “traditional” copyright, because there is an alternative.

It is called Creative Commons.  This is a new form of copyright that protects the integrity of works without damaging the ability of people to share works.  It was developed as a “traditional media” counterpart to Free and Open Source Software.  Creative Commons can keep unscrupulous people from commercializing a work that does not belong to them, protect the content of the work from slanderous alteration, all while allowing people to freely distribute and share the work without fear of legal retribution.  I am so convinced that Creative Commons works, that I have released all of my personal work using a Creative Commons license, including this article.

It Isn’t Just Music Any More

I have talked at length so far specifically about Christian music, but the truth is that what I am talking about could be applied to so much more.  Commentaries, Biblical language lexicons, Sunday School programs, devotional materials, Denominational materialsBiblical interpretation software, sermons, and even the Biblical text itself can and should be distributed digitally for free.  It all belongs to God, and we have been stealing from Him.

What goes for musicians goes the same for these artists.  Many of these works are written by institutional academics who are paid to take time off from teaching specifically to do research and write books and articles. In this case I believe that they have received sufficient compensation already.  Pastors are paid by their church to preach every Sunday, and so sermons are likewise already paid for.  Software engineers could certainly learn a lesson from open source developers like Red Hat about giving away software and also being financially stable.

I understand the need to charge money for physical items, such as books and DVDs, as these items cost money to make.  Digital media costs literally nothing to reproduce, and almost nothing to distribute.  Furthermore free digital distribution of materials would endear our mission to a world becoming more and more jaded by consumerism.  We need to give up on the foolish notion that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is something we can commodify.

God Must be Glorified

At the end of the day, Christians must examine anything that they do by the rubric, “Is God glorified by this?”  What would bring greater glory to God, to sell worship music or to give it away for anyone to use?  We have to abandon reliance on ourselves and trust that God will provide.  No longer can we hold onto the excuse, “God you can have every part of my life except for my art, because I need that to make a living.”  God requires us to give up everything to Him and to put Him in control of every aspect of our lives.  If we withhold our talent and our art, then we are guilty of idolatry.  We worship that idol every time we put a price tag on something that belongs to God.

UPDATE: OMGUbuntu has a great article on monetizing free software that may be relevant to the discussion.

2010
08.19

At least for now ;-)

My friend Matt wrote a comic with some great commentary on the relationship between the Church and culture.  Go read it, because it is good.

2010
08.18

There were two really great films that came out this summer movie season.  One was Inception, which I highly recommend but will not be the focus of this post.  The other was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; a movie that I have already seen twice and anticipate being one of my all time favorites.

My love for Scott Pilgrim is not shared by all, however.  In fact, reviews have been very mixed, and the movie seems to have polarized the critics.  There does seem to be a trend among the bad reviews, however, and that is a tendency to review not the movie, but the perceived intended audience.

As the linked article indicates, many reviewers disliked the movie and lashed out against those who enjoyed it.  According to these particular reviewers, the movie (which both honors and lampoons hipster and video game culture in much the same way that Hot Fuzz honored and lampooned action movies) is only for shallow zomboids who have wasted their lives playing video games.

The real problem, however, is too painfully obvious: these critics just didn’t “get it.”  And it is okay not to “get it.”  What is not okay is claiming that those who did get it are somehow beneath you, or that you are better than them.  For me, one of the things that makes Scott Pilgrim so wonderful is that it appeals to things that I enjoy,  a vernacular I speak, and a sense of humor common among my peers.

[Spoilers begin!] When I see an establishing shot of Scott Pilgrim’s apartment paired with the oh-so familiar slap-bass of Seinfeld, that is funny to me.  When I see 64-hit combos and “KO” announcements a la Street Fighter portrayed in a semi-realistic setting, this has comedic value [Spoilers end!].  The humor is derived from a shared experience.  When you don’t have that same experience, it is natural for you not to find this nearly as funny as I.  That doesn’t mean that the experience is invalid.

What makes me most angry about the critical treatment of Scott Pilgrim is the lack of understanding that not everything has to appeal to everyone.  There are words for art that appeals to everyone; Words such as “broad” and “mediocre.”  People have very different sensibilities, with different ideas of what is funny, moving, or meaningful.  When you make something that is intended to appeal to everyone, you damage the impact your work can have on an audience.  You have to water something down to the point that it hardly says anything at all in order to take into consideration all of the different points of view that are out there.

Scott Pilgrim is not broad, nor is it mediocre.  It is also something that is not made for everyone, but that makes it all the more special for the people for whom it was made.

Update (8/21/2010): 1 random guy wrote a comic about the whole ordeal.