I saw a link yesterday to a January 8 article in Christianity Today about a question that is becoming increasingly significant in the modern media age. The article describes the problem, “Who Owns the Pastor’s Sermons?” That used to be an insignificant issue. It was hard to get a book published or get a radio ministry that produced income. But with the explosion of self-publishing and podcasts and monetized internet options and PayPal, there are a lot of ways for pastors to make a little income from their messages and writings.
But hold on a second, preacher!
You may be taking profits from material that does not belong to you. Copyright law protects the author and grants him rights, but there is a category called “works made for hire.” If an employee (and yes, you are a church employee as a Southern Baptist pastor – or you ought to be by IRS regulation) produces a work as a part of his employment, then the copyright belongs to the employer.
There is an online document from Copyright.gov that you ought to read, called “Works Made for Hire.” The law on the subject seems to be pretty clear. (NOTE: we have two or three lawyers who are regular readers/commenters on this site. I am not a lawyer. I’ve studied this and I THINK I understand it, but if one of our SBC legal team wants to weigh in, feel free!). Here is a statement that makes things pretty clear.
“If a work is made for hire, an employer is considered the author even if an employee actually created the work.“
The document then goes on to give a definition of “work made for hire.”
“a work prepared by an employee in the scope of his or her employment.”
Couldn’t be much more clear, could it? You church hired you to prepare and preach sermons. The copyrights to your sermons belong, by law, TO YOUR CHURCH! If money is made from those sermons, it belongs to the church and not to the pastor. Books prepared from sermons are covered as well. It is likely that if you write (a book, or even a blog) and do so as an extension of your ministry, using your work computer or in the church office, copyright on that material also belongs to the church.
As I understand it, the law is pretty clear and unequivocal on this topic. The copyrights on the sermons you preach belong to your church. Before you rail against the unfairness of it all, this is pretty standard business in other companies. I had friends who developed products for a major aerospace industry in Cedar Rapids. In fact, the copyright was in their name. However, the copyright was owned by the company and the employee got a pittance of a bonus for the work.
This raises some issues, of course.
- What happens if I preach a sermon I prepared before I came to my current church, while employed at another church? Who owns that sermon – Northbrook or Southern Hills (or even Drakes Branch or First Baptist, Tequesta)?
- How do I distinguish between what I write as an employee and what I write as an individual?
- Can a church sue its pastor for royalties from published works (the answer is, I think, yes). I doubt they would, but they could.
The Solution
There is a solution to this problem, of course. If you are going to write and publish, you need an approved and published agreement with your church that specifically grants you the copyright to your messages. Just spell it out!
I did that long ago, since I have been writing (and seeking to publish) for a long time. I had an agreement with my previous church, where I served for nearly 15 years, and I brought that agreement forward to Southern Hills when I came on here. The agreement needs to be fair to both parties.
- It needs to clarify copyright ownership of materials produced as a church employee.
- It needs to clarify some sort of fair use by the church – they’ve already paid for the use of your sermons!
Here is a copy of my agreement as it appears in our Employee Policy Manual at SHBC.
Works for Hire Policy
David Miller shall be granted copyright ownership to all material, in form, content, and creative content, developed by him during his tenure at Southern Hills Baptist Church. The church shall have the right to use the pastor’s image and materials in its ministries without payment of royalties during his tenure. Materials developed for use in the church may be produced and used without royalties even after the pastor’s tenure ends.
This policy makes three specific points.
- I own the copyright to everything I preach, write or prepare. When I go, it goes with me. I can publish it as I please. If God blesses and I ever actually make money on my writings or messages, it is mine to keep.
- The church can use any materials I produce during my tenure without paying me any royalties beyond the compensation package they already give me. If I make royalties on my writings, it won’t be from Southern Hills.
- Any materials that I produce for the use of the church – Sunday sermons, study materials, whatever – can be used by the church in perpetuity for its own ministries.
It seems like a fair bargain to me and neither church has blinked an eye (perhaps they do not believe that I am really going to make any money from publishing – a fair belief at this point) at this agreement. It is in our policy manual, approved by the church.
Conclusion:
Let me be as clear as I can. If you do not have such an agreement with your church, they own your sermons, they own any books produced from your sermons and they own the rights to anything you write as a part of your employment. Just assume, if you do not have an agreement similar to the one I posted above, your church owns the copyrights to everything you preach, write or produce. That’s the law.
I do not think that it is unethical for me to assert my own copyrights over materials I produce. But it must be done by a legal agreement – approved by the church.
If you do not have an agreement with the church defining copyrights, then I would conclude with the following two assertions.
- You need to get an official (in writing, church-approved) agreement defining copyrights.
- Until you do, the church owns all the copyrights.
I’d love to hear from some of our lawyers. I think I’m on solid ground here, but I have yet to pass the bar.
Dave,
How is such an agreement made? Where is this in writing? Would one do this in a business meeting or what?
I did some research on this, where I came up with the wording. But I just presented it to the church as a part of our policy document governing my employment. We have a lengthy document for each employee defining job description, compensation, expense reimbursement and other conditions of employment. This is part of that.
If I don’t have something like this but I’d like to have something like this how would you suggest doing that?
The document? I’d be glad to show you our document.
A treasurer (who misunderstood everything about church finances) accused me of fraud with church money a long time ago. We brought in an “expert” and he said we were not even in gray areas. But after that, we wrote long and detailed documents and spelled out all the policies so that there would be no questions in the future. The guy who helped us with them, a man who traveled the country working with non-profits, made sure we were in full compliance with tax law and IRS regs.
I will be glad to share the doc with anyone who wishes it. It could serve as a template for others.
One warning, regs change all the time, so you can’t trust that something that was legal 15 years ago is still legal today.
For instance, policies related to healthcare need to be updated as a result of Obamacare.
News You Can Use!!
Some pastors qualify as independent contractors, by the way. According to that same article (and the decision behind it), they retain ownership. One of the key ways to tell what kind of relationship you have is via the receipt of a W2 or a 1099. There are some common law standards for remaining an independent contractor, though, and neither you nor the church should claim that you’re independent unless you meet them. You can read about those at the Independent Contractor or Employee article at the IRS site.
I was learning about those rules around age 18 trying to submit my Financial Aid Form to the US government to qualify for Pell (then BEOG) Grants. Dad pointed me at the filing cabinet and said “the previous year’s tax forms are there…I’ll probably file after your deadline…figure it out.” It was mind numbing to figure it out the first time off of all the forms he ended up filing (1040 long form, SE, Schedule C, etc.) All that came in handy later as I’ve flitted between startups, self-employment, and major corporations during my career.
Not sure if you saw CT’s updated post on this and I’m not sure if this was in their original, but I noticed this paragraph may make it a challenge to grant sermon ownership to a pastor from an IRS standpoint.
“Sommerville said that churches could run into Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headaches if they give pastors the intellectual property rights to their sermons. That’s because intellectual property rights are considered charitable assets and thus have to be used for charitable purposes. The IRS bans “private inurement”—charitable assets resulting in personal gain (as when a pastor receives royalties for books to which the church holds the intellectual rights).”
Link: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-february/who-owns-sermon-church-pastor.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews&start=1
Again, I’m not a lawyer. But taking income from writing books based on sermons seems something different than. Private inurement.
I think this is going to have to be litigated at some point. As I understand it, that’s how IRS regs are often developed – IRS audits, makes a ruling, it is litigated, Regs are developed.
With the advent of the social media industry, it is a going to hit the courts at some point.
I would like to know, if I am an employee according to the IRS, why am I paying Social Security like a self employed person.
That is simple. We have a dual status as self-employed for Social Security purposes (I think that is because they can’t tax churches) and as employees for tax purposes.
The IRS guidelines are pretty clear – 99.9% of SBC pastors would not qualify as self-employed for tax purposes. Here’s a link to an IRS document that will help in making the determination.
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-Employee
By the way, I’ve been both. Early on, my churches were still trying to say I was an independent contractor, not an employee. I finally demanded that they either make me an employee as the law dictated, or put a letter in my file saying that they were keeping me as an independent contractor contrary to my wishes and convictions. They made me an employee.
I think being an employee is better – not sure why so many resist.
Because that’s what the law says, we clergy having a dual (employee for income tax but self-employed in regard to Social Security). The history of it has to do with our government not wishing to burden churches with the requirement of deducting, filing, and paying taxes on their ministers as employees. Some churches pay a cash allowance to the minister as an “offset” for his SECA taxes but this is merely a budgetary item that is additional income to the minister on which he pays both income and SECA taxes.
You can lower this somewhat by having an accountable reimbursement plan that includes a mileage amount for use of a personal car for your employer (church). You can also have an amount set aside on the same basis for education, professional advancement, books, etc. That’s about all you can do. Swallow hard and pay up.
But there’s no law against griping about your taxes in this regard.
And, the thing is, people act like independent contractor is so much better. I do not think it is. I’m not sure why pastors want to be independent contractors. As one who has been both, I don’t see the advantage.
Pastors don’t have to pay Social Security taxes, is they opt out. Originally pastors were not even allowed to participate in the Social Security system and then the govt decided to take their money and automatically enrolled them, but allowed them to opt out (if they had appropriate religious convictions). Far too many pastors are paying into Social Security believing they can’t opt out.
Needless to say, if pastors are allowed by Federal Law to opt out, they are not considered employees.
Yes, the opt-out option is there. Most recommend you NOT take that option.
And as you said you cannot opt out based on “it’s better for me financially” but only on grounds of conscientious objection to such. It’s a pretty thin argument.
I opted out years ago, based on the advice of a well-known Christian financial freedom expert. He presented a rationale and I said, “Yes, that’s what I believe.”
I’ve never felt that good about my 4361 – I think my reasons were more financial than they were conscientious.
If you opt out, you are expected to provide for yourself those things that are provided for you by social security – disability, death benefit, retirement, etc.
Every few years, they have given a chance for pastors to opt back in. There’s not been one in a while, that I am aware of. If they ever offer it again, I might join the system again, though the 15% hit on my salary would be tough.
Again, pastors are self-employed in terms of SECA – and must pay the whole amount if they are in the system. However, we are employees for tax purposes.
The “we are self-employed for social security, therefore independent contractors for tax purposes” is not a valid argument. Not sure if you are making that, but it is simply NOT valid.
Straight from Guidestone:
“Do ministers have to pay Social Security taxes?
Ministers for tax purposes must pay SECA taxes on their ministerial earnings unless they have properly followed IRS rules to opt out of Social Security, something few ministers qualify to do. If ministers have opted out of Social Security for their ministerial income, they must pay Social Security taxes on any income earned from secular employment.”
and
“Few ministers can opt out of Social Security by meeting the strict IRS guidelines required for filing IRS Form 4361, Application for Exemption from Self-Employment Tax for Use by Ministers, Members of Religious Orders and Christian Science Practitioners.
Three copies of this form must be filed by the due date of the minister’s tax return for the second year in which the minister had net earnings from self-employment of at least $400, any part of which came from ministerial income. If the form isn’t filed by that date, it is too late to opt out. The IRS must approve the application. Many ministers do not understand the strict rules for opting out of Social Security. They may not even read the requirements for filing Form 4361 before signing it. Ministers cannot opt out of Social Security because they think it’s a bad investment. When filing Form 4361, a minister makes some representations under penalty of perjury. A minister must certify opposition on the basis of religious principles to acceptance of public insurance. That includes payments for death, disability, retirement or medical care. Ministers must certify that they have informed their ordaining body of their opposition to accepting public insurance benefits on the basis of religious principles. Few ministers will be able to meet these requirements.
Even for those ministers who meet all these requirements, careful consideration must be given before opting out of Social Security. Once the decision to opt out is made, it is irrevocable.
Pastors who choose to opt out of Social Security also lose access to other important benefits, including potential disability payments for themselves and payments to their surviving spouse or dependents in the event of their death. They will also be denied Medicare coverage when they reach age 65, forcing them to provide the entire cost of their health care.”
Opting out of Social Security is probably not in your best interests as a one of the lowest-paid professions in the United States since Social Security payouts are relatively progressive (while the collections are relatively regressive.)
Guidestone is a GREAT source for info on such things.
“Pastors who choose to opt out of Social Security also lose access to other important benefits, including potential disability payments for themselves and payments to their surviving spouse or dependents in the event of their death.”
And, who believes it will be there? God’s word calls us to be good stewards and if young pastors aren’t buying their own disability and life insurance policies, they are putting their families at risk.
Guidestone is simply wrong that not many pastors can opt out. It blows my mind that Guidestone is in bed with the govt. All it takes is for one to believe in the first amendment and to not want the govt in your ministry. Seminary students are being taught a disservice if they are being told to give 13+% of their money to the govt. when they could, as good stewards, be using that money for the kingdom and their families.
Again, look at Social Security’s history. They disallowed pastors at the beginning because they concurred that ministers were not like “regular” employees. It was only after some politicians figured out they could get more money that they included minister’s into Social Security. And then they didn’t leave in our hands as to whether or not to join, but included us without our consent and then gave us the ability to opt out.
Disability Insurance, Life Insurance, and Long-Term Care Insurance (if bought early in one’s life) is far less expensive than 13+% of your entire ministerial career. And it will be far better coverage than what the govt. (which can change its laws, and its scheduled dates of pay-outs) can give.
AND THEY HAVE ALREADY MULTIPLE TIMES… in the amount they take, in delaying the payouts, etc.
Nate, you might reconsider. “The system is broken” is not what the conscientious objection exception is all about.
Here is an article you might want to read.
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/03/15/a-letter-to-dave-ramsey-on-unwittingly-advising-pastors-to-break-the-law/
And, from Dr. Moore.
http://www.russellmoore.com/2010/02/15/is-it-okay-for-me-to-opt-out-of-social-security-my-response/
It’s not just an “opt-out.”
It has to be a definable religious objection to having church money pay for government insurance. I took that objection back when I was a bi-vo pastor and prayed through it, searched through it, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t think the church could or should put their responsibility to care for those who serve on the government like that. There wasn’t much financial interest for me at the time–I was a low-paid bi-vo guy, still paying employee-based SSA, and expected to continue doing so. My objection was strictly on religious income.
I’m still inclined in that direction. I don’t meet Russel Moore’s “would you go to prison?” test, but I feel strongly about several other things that I would sign my objection to, but wouldn’t go to prison over. I informed the church that ordained me, and now, here we are. I pay for my own disability, my own retirement, and my own death benefits. I do not know that there is enough that I am paying for that would truly replace survivor benefits for my family, and that worries me at times.
Would I object-out again? If I were making the decision in the same situation, I probably would. If I were making that decision as a full-time minister and having time to consult with a few others, I might not. I still hold that the minister should rely on God’s provision through the church and not the government, but I am uncertain how different it is to pay 15% to the Feds for benefits that I pay out 15% to private industry. I actually object to both, but somehow volunteering for the one seemed less objectionable than being threatened with prison to do the other.
It’s a thorny one, and not a certain decision by far, either way. And if you ever have to defend it in Tax Court, “It was bad financially” doesn’t work as a defense. Everybody’s Social Security is a bad decision financially. That’s why you go to prison for evading it, to make non-compliance worse than compliance.
I hear you Dave and I have read Dr. Moore’s statement on that. I personally think he is completely wrong. I agree with Dave Ramsey and I don’t think the Gospel Coalition is accurately stating the situation. I don’t think the govt. should be involved in ministry (mine or anybody’s) and I don’t want or need their assistance, therefore they shouldn’t tax me. (that is a legitimate objection)
I understand this is a personal issue for pastors. My concern is that both options are not being given the same amount of energy (Dr. Moore’s “prison” example, for instance is complete hyperbole, in my opinion). There was no discussion on this in seminary and no warning to young seminarians that they only had a limited time after ordination to opt. Our SBC seminaries refuse to take money from the govt (student loans) so that they are not beholding to the govt. and thereby dictated to, but they advise their students to join themselves to the govt. Again, in my opinion, this is talking out of both sides of their mouths.
However, any who feel they can’t morally stand on the objections I’ve presented should give the govt their money.
Interesting…and your best article here.
I admit to being wrong on this, having presumed that if anything belongs to the pastor it is his sermons. As you advise, having an agreement with the church would settle this.
My understanding is that very few *pastors* may consider themselves to be independent contractors (although evangelists and others may) which is why we have the dual status and receive W-2s.
This raises the question about our denominational employees who publish and whose publications are then sold by their employer. Who profits? This was a problem at NAMB pre-Ezell.
Most of us need only realize that our sermons have little monetary value, perhaps a humbling conclusion, but a true one nonetheless. I recall a few cases where a few pastors had the unfortunate experience of having the church or their home burn and losing all their sermon files. They claimed monetary losses on the sermons and had that disallowed by the IRS who said they had no value, no matter how many hours work went into them.
Some of the other aspects worth noting in this:
Who owns the computer you use? Who supplied the chisel/stone, for you who are a little late in the tech department?
Where were you when you did the work? Were you in a parsonage, which you have tax-free because you are expected to work from there, or in your own home?
It shouldn’t matter that much, but it does. Especially if you do get into making zillions, like Dave’s book will do someday, and the IRS comes knocking.
There’s an additional aspect that I think needs a legal mind in the current age: what about blogging? If I write a post for SBCVoices, but do it from my church furnished computer, legally who is responsible for that post? Morally, I am. This I know. But if Baptist Press wants to reprint it, or if someone wants to reprint it in a work-for-hire, who gives permission?
Me, Dave, the church, the site owner?
And when I get a free book to review on a blog, that I write on a church computer from my church office, is it my book or the church’s book?
We think this doesn’t matter because spiritually it shouldn’t matter, but when a hungry government decides to tax “blog revenue” like books or free trips for publicity as income, it will.
Since there is no money to be made as a blogger here at SBC Voices, I’m not sure it really matters. But if someone monetizes their blog, it becomes an issue.
We got in trouble once here, because someone sent me a blog post they had put up elsewhere and asked me if I’d cross post. Many of our contributors publish first at their personal site then here, and we cross-link. But this site was a big-name site and claimed ownership of the post. They were pretty upset when the post appeared here (even with the author’s permission). They demanded we take it down and we did.
I don’t know what the legalities are, but we (well, I) do not claim ownership of posts published here.
So how would all these rules apply to a bivocational pastor who does not receive a salary from the church – even if he’s the only “employee”? Also, what about lay elders who preach occasionally and their sermons are even on the church podcast? Who owns those sermons?
-Bob Browning
If you are an occasional preacher, you are likely not an employee – no issue.
If you are bivo, that would likely make things more interesting.
I know of a couple folks that are bivo that fall in this category. I think a lot of our church planters might fall into this category because they may be supporting their own salary through a separate missions organization or through secular employment and therefore aren’t drawing a salary from the church – but it would seem strange to say that the senior pastor is not somehow legally tied to the church.
This is a topic I’d really like to see someone address in the comments or in a future post. It’s definitely an area for potential stumbling blocks if things aren’t handled with care up front.
My suggestions would be twofold.
1) Talk to a lawyer. (that’s expensive, of course). Or…
2) Talk to Guidestone. They are pretty good on stuff like this.
Well, since you didn’t have such a document when you were at Drakes Branch, we will be expecting our royalties check if you are ever published.
I will make sure I never use any material from my sermons there in books.
So…if the church owns the sermons, wouldn’t that also make illegal the practice of sending a copy of your sermon to another church’s pastor search committee without the permission of the church where the sermon was preached?
Or would that not matter if you don’t sell it to them?
Yeah, these laws only apply when money is at stake.
Is a job “promotion” not money at stake?
That gets convoluted, doesn’t it? And probably why Paul does not really give any loopholes about suing each other–better we handle it by just doing our best to do what’s right and forgive what’s wrong, rather than jot and tittle ourselves in front of the state.
So how would all this apply to a professor who uses notes from class lectures to make a book? Do his class lectures belong to him or to the school? Or are professors consider independent contractors? Otherwise it seems the material they produce for class would belong to the school since that is what they are hired to do.
Thought-provoking conversation. I always presumed that Adrian Rogers held the copyright to all of my sermons.
Again, comment of the day to Dr. Barber.
If I ever have a sermon worthy of copyrighting, I’ll be sure and follow these guidelines.
Yeah, that’s the rub in all of this. It matters to me because I am attempting to publish several books I’ve been working on. Actually, most of them were in the works before I moved here, but I have preached the content here at one point or another.
But, yes, to this point, no one has been fighting over the money generated from any of my sermons.
I’d love to hear from some of our lawyers.
I haven’t had a chance to read through all of the comments yet, so there may already be a great discussion from some of the other attorneys, but I did want to comment just to say that I’ve read the post, I think it’s a fascinating issue, and I’ll hopefully have some time tomorrow to think through these issues.
Thank you, counselor.
Here are some general thoughts:
I know this may sound like a bit of a cop-out, but I think a recently-added preface to the CT article hits the nail on the head: “[C]hurches and pastors are wading into legally unprecedented territory. Line up 10 legal experts, and they will give you 10 slightly different answers to the question, ‘Who owns the pastor’s sermon?’” Ultimately, there isn’t an objective, straight-forward answer to these issues. I would argue that, with the current state of IRS regulations, copyright ownership is leaning heavily in favor of churches, but it is by no means a slam dunk. Absent an agreement to the contrary, I would generally advise pastors to assume and operate as if the church owns the intellectual property (IP). Until the IRS actually tries to pop a church or a pastor under these regulations and the issue is actually litigated in federal court, it’s really impossible to say what, ultimately, the law will require.
As Dave pointed out, this is consistent with intellectual property rights in other industries. If I work for a company and create intellectual property in the course of my employment, then the intellectual property generally belongs to the company. As several people have observed, though, this analogy quickly breaks down in the context of sermons. What if you’re publishing a book with the same general concepts from a sermon, but which isn’t just a re-worked manuscript? What if the sermon was written for and preached at a revival or conference separate from your church? What happens if a church splits or dissolves? Where was the sermon written and on whose computer? Even if a church grants its pastor full IP rights, is this merely side-stepping the prohibition against inurement? What about bi-vocational pastors or circuit pastors? What if manuscripts are published on private blogs? This is all uncharted territory. (And remember: even if these issues seems convoluted or nit-picky, remember that convoluted and nit-picky issues are generally the ones which end up causing lawsuits and which end up making the laws.)
Overall, I think that the best advice in any situation is for churches and pastors to figure out these questions ahead of time, preferably during the hiring process, and to clearly set forth, in writing, (a) the scope of employment, (b) IP rights, and (c) licensing/use rights. Even if a pastor is already employed, it’s still a good idea to get these issues settled and in writing. (Still, though, this does leave the difficult question of dealing with sermons from previous churches.)
If the pastor is being granted intellectual property rights, I think it’s very important for the contract to spell out explicitly the scope of license/use for the church. I do have a word of caution, though: If there’s an agreement in place, make sure that the agreement is a reflection of reality and isn’t just there as to try to sidestep or placate IRS regulations. If the pastor is retaining IP rights and he is profiting from those IP rights, then his profit better truly be separate from his work at the church. Simply granting a pastor IP rights to his sermons doesn’t automatically validate all business practices related to the sermons—the IRS isn’t going to be fooled if church resources and church staff are being used de facto as the pastor’s private publishing company. (One thing I’ve seen more and more frequently and which I tend to like is, for megachurche pastors, setting up a separate corporation—either for-profit or non-profit—and actually having that corporation staffed and located elsewhere, completely independent of the church. Obviously, that’s not feasible for 99% of pastors, but it’s certainly helpful.)
Like I said, ultimately, there isn’t yet a clear answer here, and there won’t be until lawsuits are filed, litigated, and appealed. Having these issues clearly spelled-out between the pastor and the church, though, is certainly a thousand times better than having nothing at all.
In follow-up, I think these issues create another, potentially more thorny, issue:
In this modern information age, churches and pastors can quickly and easily disseminate (and potentially profit from) intellectual property. Both this post and the CT article focused solely on the issue of preachers and their sermons—whether employees, contractors, bi-vocational, or even lay individuals.
But there is a lot more intellectual property being creating in the context of a church, especially in well-staffed megachurches. Music ministers are writing music, composing arrangements, etc. Tech crews are developing software and systems for projection, recording, broadcast, etc. Lay persons are giving their talents freely and often times being recording and rebroadcast on to websites, podcasts, and television. It’s not at all uncommon, even for very small churches, to have worship teams (comprised of both employees and lay people) recording albums for the congregation and for actual sale.
It’s one thing for a recording of the pastor’s sermon to go up on the church’s blog on Monday morning. It’s a very different thing when you’ve got entire services being recording and potentially re-used by pastors in other contexts outside of the church, (such as through a separate, independent broadcast ministry).
I definitely don’t think it’s a bad idea for churches to really think through these issues. Like I said above, I know it sounds convoluted and nit-picky, but that’s precisely why it’s important. Lawsuits don’t happen when everything is clear and unambiguous; they happen when technology and society are moving too quickly for the law to catch up.
Would it make sense for IP produced for a church (sermons, music, etc.) to be released under a Creative Commons License? Or would that only cause different headaches?
Releasing content under a creative commons license isn’t a bad idea, just to show a church isn’t profiting from content, but I unfortunately don’t think it really solves a lot of the problems that could come in the future. The issue is that the church may not have the right to distribute certain content at all because it has no right to the IP.
The rub isn’t so much what the church is doing, since the church is non-profit and (theoretically) shouldn’t be profiting from any of its content. However, when churches and independent-but-intertwined ministries start blurring the lines, then you could run into a situation where someone might be profiting from the IP of others. The problem is that you could have individuals in a church who are sharing their own IP in the context of a church setting, (e.g., a non-pastor preaching, a non-music minister singing a song he wrong, an artist’s work being displayed while a service is being filmed, etc.). It’s one thing for the non-profit church to be distributing the content non-profit. But what if the pastor has a separate, for-profit business for publishing his own content, and some of the lay people’s IP gets intertwined with the pastor’s content? I’m not saying it’s a serious, looming issue, but, from a legal standpoint, I could envision how all of these competing IP claims could quickly turn into a quagmire.
Also, I’m not trying to be alarmist or to suggest that any church do anything in particular. This is obviously all hypothetical. But, with the rapid rate at which the ease of publication has been increasing in recent years, I can see how, in the very near future, churches are going to be faced with difficult issues that could never have been imagined a decacde or two ago.
One final clarification, too:
It’s important to remember, when dealing with copyright issues, that a copyright to certain material doesn’t just prevent the unauthorized profit from that material but rather the unauthorized use and distribution of that material, whether for profit or not. Just because a church is a non-profit organization and just because the church is releasing the content without profit doesn’t sidestep the issue of copyright.
I just wanted to make that clear, since, reading over my previous comment, I may have given an impression to the contrary.
See, folks, sometimes lawyers actually CAN help.
Good stuff, Zach.
There you go, Dave, sullying our bad reputation.
Don’t worry, we’ll do a post of all lawyer jokes at some point.
By the way, as per our agreement, send the bill to Doug.
“Don’t worry, we’ll do a post of all lawyer jokes at some point.”
Q: How do you know probate lawyers are Calvinists?
A: They never offer free wills.
Heyo! I’ll be here all week, folks.
Uh-oh.
We’ve got an Arminian Lawyer at the Arkansas Baptist Foundation. He does free wills for ministers.
Call the Brute Squad.
I thought you were the brute squad.
Dave’s the Brute Squad.
I am not left-handed.
I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?
Do you always begin conversations this way?
We’ll never survive…
You’re only saying that because no one ever has.
What about preaching a sermon at a conference or a revival meeting where you use a sermon that belongs to your church?
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/february/morning-roundup-2614.html
“Morning Roundup 2/6/14
Joni Eareckson Tada and the Oscars; Who Owns the Pastor’s Sermons?; Creation Debate”
Because of the headline, I thought Stetzer had linked to your post when I clicked on it. Sorry, Dave. No such luck.