Pirating the Bible

The nice thing about have such a small (if not entirely nonexistent) reader base is that I can get a little idealistic instead of worrying about who's reading.

The main thing that's been on my mind for a past few days is copyright law, especially in Christian circles (mainly, should it exist at all?) See, intellectual property is, in all respects, the "oil" of the 21st century... the more you stake your claim in now, the more money (and consequently, power) you stand to gain in the future.

I should probably preface this before I continue, so the two people who read this don't think I've lost my mind, by saying that I've just been wrestling with this, and don't necessarily hold every reflection that I type as a personal conviction and belief.

So, onto my youthful idealism... St. Augustine said in his Confessions that the truth belongs to no man, but to God. I've been wondering recently, in light of such a statement, what implications that would have for Christian copyright holders. If all theologians are striving for the same Truth, and that truth belongs to God and God alone, should theologians be concerned with preventing others from plagiarizing "their" work? Should certain translations of the Bible really be copyrighted (i.e. Zondervan and the NIV)? Maybe the elimination of such copyright laws would weed out the authors and publishers who write for the sole purpose of making money.

The same goes for worship songs... at what point is the music artist more important than the God who the song was supposedly written for?

If I wanted to be painfully idealistic, I would extend such a proposal to secular copyright holders... But I think it's a bit hard for the Church to change the world when, in many ways, we're not so different (meaning, we've got ideals for the world to transform into, but very few tangible differences to offer)... and staking our claim in our intellectual property is one way the Church isn't too different from the rest of the world.

I had a few other unrelated thoughts, but I'm just going to save them for a later post.