WEBVTT 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.440 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:43.120 Mahler. And I'm Wo. 00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:48.560 Before we get into today's episode proper, just a few housekeeping matters. 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:52.480 First, the feedback form we mentioned in the last episode, we have 00:00:52.480 --> 00:00:54.480 already received some feedback. 00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:58.080 We've added some suggestions to our list of future topics. 00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:00.160 Thank you for the feedback so far. 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:05.040 For anyone else who has feedback, please visit stone dash choir.com slash 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:07.200 feedback. Very simple form. 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:08.560 Fill it out, send it. 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.560 We will take a look at it. 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:15.120 Additionally, on the website, you can also look for the telegram channel. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.280 You can send us feedback that way or ask a question 00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:21.920 if you would prefer to get a faster answer. 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:25.440 The feedback form does not currently include a way for you to 00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:26.480 include an email address. 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.240 Maybe I'll add that, make it optional. 00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:31.520 But But if you have a question and want an answer, the 00:01:31.520 --> 00:01:35.120 telegram channel is probably the fastest way to get that. 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:39.440 And then third and last for the housekeeping matters, we would just 00:01:39.440 --> 00:01:41.920 ask that you this is a prayer request. 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:42.880 We would ask that you pray for us 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:49.280 if you remember on Tuesday morning since we record on Tuesdays or 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:51.040 whenever during the week. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:54.000 The time certainly does not matter for God. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.200 Just that Just that our audio equipment would continue to function and 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:01.680 that the gremlins would be kept at bay. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.000 We haven't had any significant issues recently. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:08.320 We've seemingly managed to get over that hump, but every time we 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:12.560 turn everything on and it actually works, it's a pleasant surprise. 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:17.280 So anyway, that is the end of the housekeeping matters for now. 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.240 So on to the actual episode. 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:28.160 In this episode, we will be discussing the issue of copyright and 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:32.160 intellectual property from a Christian perspective. 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:36.000 And so what we are advocating is that there needs to be 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:41.920 a return to Christians acting as Christians, even in the marketplace, in 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:44.160 the public square. 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:47.840 Whatever the purpose of copyright may have originally been, and we will 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:52.880 get into that in this episode, it has certainly not panned out. 00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:58.080 It has become something entirely other, and it is no longer beneficial 00:02:58.080 --> 00:02:58.800 to the church 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:04.080 if it ever in fact was beneficial to the church. 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:04.720 And so 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:10.160 the current copyright regime as it exists is something that we as 00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:12.800 Christians have inherited from the culture 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:18.160 that comes with certain presumptions. 00:03:18.160 --> 00:03:23.440 Those are imported into the church along with the ideas of copyright 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:29.280 and other attendant things, and they are actively harmful. 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:33.200 And so essentially our conclusion, and we're not going to bury the 00:03:33.200 --> 00:03:36.880 lead, that is not really our style, that's not the purpose. 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:42.960 Our conclusion is that copyright is harmful to the church, and that 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:48.080 materials should be made available freely for all. 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:53.120 Now this is not to say that authors, translators, etcetera, should not 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:57.440 be compensated for their time and their efforts, it is to say 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:03.360 that the current regime is not workable and is in fact wicked. 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:08.960 It is possible both to compensate those who create the material, and 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:13.840 simultaneously, not hinder the spread of the gospel. 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:17.360 That, as Christians, should be our goal 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.920 Today on Stone Choir we are going to be talking about paywalling 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.760 God. Uh usually we don't make up the title until after we're 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.320 done, but I think that's what we're gonna go with today. 00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:32.320 I think everybody knows what a paywall is. 00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:34.960 A paywall is what you see on a website where you go 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:38.960 and you you click in three articles and then it says you 00:04:38.960 --> 00:04:40.720 need to log in if you want to read more. 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:42.640 And in order to log in, you have to be paying the 00:04:42.640 --> 00:04:44.480 money. So there's content there. 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:48.160 It's already written, it's done, it's available, but not to you unless 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:49.440 you give them money. 00:04:49.440 --> 00:04:53.040 And so paywalling on the internet is something because the internet is 00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:54.640 fault fundamentally free. 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:58.320 If something is online, it doesn't cost anything for you to get 00:04:58.320 --> 00:04:59.760 to it inherently. 00:04:59.760 --> 00:05:03.840 And so a paywall is an artificial barrier of cost in order 00:05:03.840 --> 00:05:05.600 to monetize your attention. 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:07.920 So you have to pay to read the thing. 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:12.000 Uh we're gonna get to the the impact of the internet had 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.800 in a little bit, but first I want to just begin by 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.240 briefly recapping the history of publishing itself. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.040 Uh as we talked about three episodes ago and the clarity of 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:27.200 scripture, before Bibles were being mass produced by Gutenberg, they were really 00:05:27.200 --> 00:05:31.760 inaccessible. there was very little of theology that was available outside of 00:05:31.760 --> 00:05:34.560 monasteries or the academia. 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:36.080 Uh once 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:41.600 mass production of books became a thing, that radically changed. 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:47.760 So just to re briefly recap, you know, we began with scrolls, 00:05:47.760 --> 00:05:50.960 long parchment rolls like you had in the Old Testament. 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:54.720 And by the time we get to the New Testament, uh paper, 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.800 uh papyrus had been coming from Egypt, and so the Greeks began 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:01.120 to write more and more stuff on papyrus 'cause it was much 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:05.120 cheaper. and easier to use in some ways. 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:10.720 Not long after that, the shift came from scrolls to codices, which 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:12.720 are basically the very first books. 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:16.800 You have a binding with a bunch of leaves of paper, uh 00:06:16.880 --> 00:06:19.840 or p you know, a papyrus that may have writing on both 00:06:19.840 --> 00:06:22.800 sides, may not, and they're bound together with a spine. 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:25.520 If you looked at the very first codices, it basically looks like 00:06:25.520 --> 00:06:26.480 a book. 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:30.080 So those were still all handmade, so they were incredibly expensive because 00:06:30.080 --> 00:06:33.440 you have the the expertise of the scribes, you have the expertise 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:37.200 of those making either the the uh parchment or the the pyre 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:38.800 papyrus. Um 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:40.560 and so 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:45.120 every time a new book was made, it basically cost as much 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:47.200 as the first book being made. 00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:51.040 And there was a gradual change technologically. 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:55.840 By the thirteenth century, we had paper being produced in large quantities 00:06:55.840 --> 00:06:56.560 in Europe. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.360 Um it been produced in the Middle East and in Asia for 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:04.000 various purposes, but it finally began being used for printed material. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.320 So that reduced at least the cost of goods, because by the 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:12.880 thirteenth century, uh the paper was about nearly an order of magnitude 00:07:12.960 --> 00:07:15.920 cheaper than the papyrus that it was replacing. 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:19.840 So that meant the books could get gradually less expensive, but they 00:07:19.840 --> 00:07:24.320 were still handmade, they were still very rare, relatively. 00:07:24.320 --> 00:07:30.320 When Gutenberg came along and put together movable type and the press, 00:07:30.320 --> 00:07:36.080 suddenly mass production of books and printed material pamphlets and things was 00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:40.720 really possible for the first time in history at relatively low cost. 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:43.200 And so one of the thirst the first things we want to 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:45.920 talk about in this episode, just very briefly Is 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:51.120 the economic concept of marginal cost. 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:53.840 That is how much does it cost to make the last copy 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:54.640 of a thing? 00:07:54.640 --> 00:07:59.200 So when you have something like a codex or a scroll, the 00:07:59.200 --> 00:08:02.400 cost of making another one of those is basically the same as 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.560 cost the cost to make the first one. 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:08.080 Cause you have to go to gray lengths, you have very expensive 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:10.800 materials. There's no economy of scale there. 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:14.560 Um the only thing that doesn't have to be done twice is 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:16.400 the original authorship. 00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:19.680 So once it's given either you know by God through the the 00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:22.960 authors in the case of the the old and new testament or 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:28.080 some other source of writing, duplicating costs basically as much as making 00:08:28.080 --> 00:08:29.200 the first one. 00:08:29.200 --> 00:08:34.720 And so the marginal cost of making another copy switches from where 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:36.800 every copy is basically a prototype. 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:39.760 Everyone is a one off to the point where when you make 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:42.400 you know, today, if you want to print t shirts, you can 00:08:42.560 --> 00:08:44.080 have a custom t shirt made. 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:46.800 And the startup cost for getting a t shirt made is where 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:49.200 most of the money goes for a small run. 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:52.000 You know, they might charge you fifty bucks in setup and maybe 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.960 more if they have to do some sort something special. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:59.920 And then they on their end, they have setup costs just based 00:08:59.920 --> 00:09:04.480 on the complexity of moving their machinery over to produce your item 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:06.160 instead of someone else's. 00:09:06.160 --> 00:09:09.280 So, you know, maybe you want thirty tier T-shirts cost. 00:09:09.280 --> 00:09:12.080 It's gonna you know it's gonna cost you say fifteen bucks a 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:14.800 piece. If you want a hundred t-shirts printed, it might only cost 00:09:14.800 --> 00:09:15.920 you 10. 00:09:15.920 --> 00:09:19.440 If you want 500 t-shirts printed, it might only cost you six 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:22.160 or seven bucks for exactly the same t-shirt. 00:09:22.160 --> 00:09:24.960 And that's because of the economies of scale, because doing the very 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.920 first one with all the setup is very expensive. 00:09:27.920 --> 00:09:31.440 You don't amortize those costs across a large run. 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:37.280 So what Gutenberg changed was the ability to make multiple copies a 00:09:37.280 --> 00:09:40.720 whole lot cheaper than it took to make the very first one. 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:46.640 And when that change occurred, it fund fundamentally altered civilization really. 00:09:46.640 --> 00:09:49.360 I mean it's a reason that everyone knows that it named Gutenberg 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:54.000 because suddenly people began mass producing not only important stuff, like you 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.360 know, Luther's Bible, for example, but much less important things like just 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:00.240 pamphlets where people had ideas, they would you know bang a few 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:03.760 pages out and it didn't cost much to go to the press 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:06.320 and have it reproduced for you. 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:10.960 And so around in this period was the first time that folks 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:15.120 began to have the inkling that the desire for something like what 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:16.960 we today call copyright. 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:20.000 And so the this where the law comes into this. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.480 Um and we want to talk for a few minutes about how 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:25.760 that came about and how it disser differs from some of the 00:10:25.760 --> 00:10:28.320 other laws that we have in our lives. 00:10:28.640 --> 00:10:28.720 So 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:32.720 when it comes to copyright law, we really get the beginnings of 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:36.640 copyright law in England in the 1600s. 00:10:36.640 --> 00:10:39.360 You have the first act would be the licensing of the Press 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:41.440 Act of 1662. 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:46.800 And really there's some irony here, because whatever copyright is today, whatever 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:52.800 it has become, that original act was in large part an attempt 00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:58.240 to deal with lascivious material and other undesirable things that were being 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:00.240 produced and distributed. 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:03.680 And so the goal of that act was you basically needed a 00:11:03.680 --> 00:11:06.240 stamp, and of course we can get into the the Stamp Act 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:09.520 in the US, it's sort of tangentially related. 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:13.600 But you needed proof that you were permitted to publish this thing. 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:16.160 And so the goal was censorship. 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:19.120 In the positive sense here, of course, because they were attempting to 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:22.880 get rid of material you did not want distributed. 00:11:22.880 --> 00:11:27.440 However, copyright very quickly became something entirely different. 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:31.040 It became a way for it was a way for authors to 00:11:31.040 --> 00:11:34.000 assert their rights in their work. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:38.880 Now, that may initially sound like it is a good thing, but 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.880 it very quickly becomes something of very different animal. 00:11:42.880 --> 00:11:45.120 And so the first really international 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:49.280 copyright law would be the Bairn Convention in eighteen eighty six. 00:11:49.280 --> 00:11:51.280 The US incidentally did not join that. 00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:53.200 Until nineteen eighty-nine. 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.600 Took us a long time to decide we wanted to be part 00:11:55.600 --> 00:11:57.040 of that scheme. 00:11:57.040 --> 00:12:00.960 But if you're looking at the origins of copyright law, we'll look 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:04.880 at the US because obviously most listeners to this podcast would be 00:12:05.280 --> 00:12:09.040 US would be Americans, and so that's what will be relevant. 00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:13.680 Very early on, we have the Copyright Act of seventeen ninety. 00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:15.520 That's been amended a number of times. 00:12:15.520 --> 00:12:20.080 Most recently the major overhaul would be nineteen seventy six Copyright Act. 00:12:20.640 --> 00:12:25.200 And so, what that provides for is 00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:32.640 a work is protected for the life of the author plus 70 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:38.640 years. Or if it is a work for higher, or a work 00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:42.800 of someone who is anonymous or pseudonymous, then it is the shorter 00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:48.720 of publication plus ninety-five or one hundred and twenty years from creation. 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:51.600 Now we could get into the fact that interestingly it used to 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:53.200 be seventy-five or a hundred. 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:57.280 It was bumped twenty years by the Sonny Bono Act, otherwise known 00:12:57.280 --> 00:13:01.360 as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, for reasons that I would hope 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:05.680 would be obvious, large corporations have played quite a role in pushing 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:08.880 for copyright because they have been the ones who have largely benefited 00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:09.520 from this. 00:13:09.520 --> 00:13:12.960 And in fact, as things have gone on, authors have benefited less 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:14.960 and less, and those who have actually 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.520 owned the printing presses have benefited more and more, so it's gone 00:13:19.520 --> 00:13:25.120 into corporate coffers instead of the pockets of the actual authors. 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:29.040 It's worth pointing out that that's that's wildly longer than what Congress 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:30.720 originally did in seventeen ninety. 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:33.760 One of the first acts that they passed was fourteen years for 00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:34.320 a party. 00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:36.240 Or twenty eight depending or something similar. 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:41.200 Yeah. So even those numbers that today we take for granted and 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:43.520 you know we have do a lot of work in in our 00:13:43.520 --> 00:13:46.240 lives and in the church in particular, which is what this episode 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:47.840 is about, to work around them. 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:51.040 But the notion the notion that with someone writes something in your 00:13:51.040 --> 00:13:55.440 lifetime, it will literally never be available to anyone without paying that 00:13:55.440 --> 00:14:00.400 person is a modern novelty, really almost within our lifetimes. 00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:05.120 it's it's bizarre and it's not we assume because it's what we 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:08.080 inherited what we were stuck with, that that's just the way it 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:09.760 is, but it is not natural. 00:14:09.760 --> 00:14:12.720 And I think that's the key point about this whole thing is 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:14.480 that it's not natural law. 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:19.200 It's a it's an artificial construct that was intended originally for a 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:22.800 desirable purpose, but it didn't necessarily live up to that promise. 00:14:23.040 --> 00:14:26.320 Yep. Mallum prohibitum versus malumin say. 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:28.000 And may as well just address that now. 00:14:28.880 --> 00:14:30.560 A malum in se 00:14:31.520 --> 00:14:35.040 is a wrong because it is wrong in itself. 00:14:35.040 --> 00:14:37.680 So murder is a malum in se. 00:14:37.680 --> 00:14:42.240 A malum prohibitum is a wrong that is wrong because it is 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:47.360 prohibited. Thankfully this Latin is very straightforward, basically the same word. 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:51.360 An example of a malum prohibitum, usually the one used is a 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:53.200 parking violation. 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:58.480 Is it wrong or evil in itself to park where the farmer's 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:01.440 market is going to be in an hour and not move your 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:02.640 car? No. 00:15:02.640 --> 00:15:04.400 It makes you a bit of a dick. 00:15:04.400 --> 00:15:05.760 You shouldn't do that. 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:09.200 But it is not wrong or evil in itself. 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:10.320 Murder is. 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:13.520 And so copyright law is dealing 100% 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:16.640 with mala prohibita. 00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:19.280 It is not dealing with things that are evil in themselves, it 00:15:19.280 --> 00:15:24.160 is dealing with things that are wrong because they are prohibited. 00:15:24.160 --> 00:15:27.600 Now there are those who will bring up the idea of theft, 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.000 and we will get into that more. 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:32.560 We're not dealing with theft here. 00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:36.400 I am not stealing from you if I have a copy of 00:15:36.400 --> 00:15:38.240 your novel. 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.280 And we can get into of course the workman is worth his 00:15:41.280 --> 00:15:44.400 wages, but if you actually pay attention to the that verse and 00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:47.280 related verses, what is it saying? 00:15:47.280 --> 00:15:50.000 It's saying those who hire the workmen 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:52.640 are supposed to pay the workmen. 00:15:52.640 --> 00:15:56.640 So yes, if you enjoy or find value in the content being 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:00.880 produced by someone, you should probably kick a few dollars that person's 00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:04.000 way. That's that is entirely reasonable. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.400 The copyright system as it has grown up and been designed, does 00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:09.840 not accomplish that. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:11.440 And we can look at 00:16:12.640 --> 00:16:15.440 historical concrete example. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:20.160 As I said, in England you have the sixteen sixty two Act, 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:22.640 and then you have various other conventions. 00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:26.080 There's the Statute of Anne 1710 is really the first sort of 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.960 modern copyright act in England. 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:34.560 That's our seventeen ninety was based on the seventeen ten. 00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:41.280 Compare what happened with academia and authors in England, in the UK, 00:16:41.280 --> 00:16:42.880 versus what happened in Germany. 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:48.080 Germany did not have, for a number of reasons, a copyright act. 00:16:48.160 --> 00:16:53.120 The earliest in Germany was 1837 in Prussia, and of course that 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:57.600 couldn't be enforced in Germany until 1871, because that's when Germany became 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:00.400 unified. What was the consequence? 00:17:00.400 --> 00:17:03.840 What happened because of that in Eng England versus Germany. 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.280 In Germany in eighteen forty three, these were the numbers that I 00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:12.720 could find for a specific year, about fourteen thousand publications went to 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:16.000 press in Germany in eighteen forty-three. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:21.840 Bear in mind, Germany at this time was poorer, more fractured, less 00:17:21.840 --> 00:17:24.000 united than England. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:29.360 England, wealthier, more united, had one thousand. 00:17:29.360 --> 00:17:32.400 More than an order of magnitude different. 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:36.080 And not only that, the compensation that the German authors would have 00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:39.440 received would have been six months to a year of their salary. 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:42.320 Many of the authors of course would have been academics, they had 00:17:42.320 --> 00:17:44.320 the education and the time to write. 00:17:44.560 --> 00:17:48.320 Whereas in England, it would have been one-tenth. 00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:51.520 So you have to think of the difference in the kind of 00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:55.200 quality and not just the quality of the works being produced, but 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:57.200 the sort of quality of life you're going to have. 00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.200 And I have a a quote here that I just want to 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:02.160 read to give a general colour or flavor to this. 00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:05.360 This is from Walter Bassant, who was the founder and chairman of 00:18:05.360 --> 00:18:07.920 the Society of Authors in England. 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.840 This is him describing, being a writer in England in the eighteen 00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:17.360 hundreds. There is a lifelong penury in it starvation, suicide, a debtor's 00:18:17.360 --> 00:18:22.720 prison, hard and grinding work for miserable pay, a cruel taskmaster, work 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:25.600 done to order, paid for by the yard. 00:18:25.600 --> 00:18:29.440 As for the wished for life among books, these unfortunate poets could 00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:30.960 not afford to buy books. 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.560 As for freedom, quiet, ease, they never had any of it. 00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:37.600 Even the joy of composition which one would think could not be 00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:41.520 taken from them, they could never enjoy, because they wrote to order 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:43.440 and what they were told to write. 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:46.880 They were paid servants, they lived in a garret, they never rose 00:18:46.880 --> 00:18:51.920 out of poverty and misery, they were buried in a pauper's corner. 00:18:51.920 --> 00:18:56.400 Keep in mind this is a gentleman who was an author, founded 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:01.280 and represented, chaired a society of Authors, living about just shy of 00:19:01.280 --> 00:19:05.440 two hundred years after the first copyright act in England. 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:08.000 Now compare that with what I just told you about how much 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.160 money was being made by authors in Germany. 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:15.440 You can see very clearly that even early on, relatively early on, 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:20.000 the supposed good of the copyright laws, the copyright regime, was not 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:21.840 actually coming to pass. 00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:24.880 Authors were not benefiting from it. 00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:26.480 The publishers were. 00:19:27.120 --> 00:19:32.320 Exactly. Just and just to highlight explicitly, those German authors were making 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:36.880 an order of magnitude more money for printing for publishing and writing 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:40.400 books that could be freely copied without any compensation to them. 00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:43.360 Yes. They could be what we would call today ripped off for 00:19:43.360 --> 00:19:46.640 what they produced and yet they were making ten times more or 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:51.600 more or greater than the men who were were so-called protected by 00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:55.440 copyright. So as you said, there was no actual protection for the 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:57.600 author, which was how it was sold. 00:19:57.600 --> 00:19:57.920 And 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:00.880 I think one of the things that 00:20:01.760 --> 00:20:05.920 is missed when we look at it American history, a US history 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:10.080 is that the United States started in the early 1600s. 00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:12.240 It didn't start in the late 1700s. 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:15.200 Yes. And most of the people who were in charge in the 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:18.240 late seventeen hundreds, many of their ancestors have been here one hundred 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:21.600 and fifty years, but a lot of the changes that were occurring 00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:27.120 on the continent post Enlightenment, in in to be clear, America, while 00:20:27.120 --> 00:20:30.480 many of the things that were done in the Constitution were based 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:31.680 on the Enlightenment. 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:33.600 The colonies were pre-Enlightenment. 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:36.800 So all of those ideas and things like copyright had to be 00:20:36.800 --> 00:20:38.240 imported by foreigners. 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:42.400 It was not Americans on US on colonial soil who came up 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:43.360 with these things. 00:20:43.360 --> 00:20:46.960 These These were ideas that were novel that were being experimented with 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:49.280 in Europe and then being brought here. 00:20:49.280 --> 00:20:54.080 And the guys who ended up winning the uh constitutional convention and 00:20:54.080 --> 00:20:57.520 overthrowing the Articles of Confederation liked a lot of that stuff. 00:20:57.520 --> 00:21:00.240 And so they were experimenting with these new ideas. 00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:03.840 I don't think that they necessarily had ill intent when they adopted 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:06.000 it. I think that they thought it was novel and they were 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:07.520 trying to solve a problem. 00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:11.600 But in the spirit of science, if you try an experiment and 00:21:11.600 --> 00:21:16.080 it doesn't achieve the desired result, that's a successful experiment, but only 00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:19.280 in the sense that it has succeeded in proving that your thesis 00:21:19.280 --> 00:21:20.080 was wrong. 00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:22.400 And unfortunately laws don't work that way. 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:24.400 There's no expiration date on a typical law. 00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:29.040 So when we adopted copyright, it just was stuck. 00:21:29.040 --> 00:21:31.120 It just sat there like a barnacle. 00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:34.000 And people got used to it and just assumed, well, it must 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:36.400 be doing what the what they intended for it to do. 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:39.360 And as you've laid out clearly, that was never the case. 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:42.880 And there's a there was a clear A B experiment in different 00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:48.000 European countries where intellectual and literal literacy levels may have been similar, 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.680 but the output was decidedly not, and one of the key dividing 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.840 factors was that the English were prohibited and the Americans were prohibited 00:21:55.920 --> 00:22:00.480 and the Germans were permitted to really reproduce any idea, with or 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.240 without without attribution. 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:04.960 You take it, you hear it, you see it, you copy it, 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:05.680 it's yours. 00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:07.120 You can do what you want with it. 00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:10.640 And today we call that theft, but that was what caused an 00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:16.720 explosion of intellectual creativity virtually unparalleled in in Western history. 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:16.880 The 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:21.360 Reformation, quite simply, would not have been possible if Germany had had 00:22:21.360 --> 00:22:24.640 an English-style regime for copyright. 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:30.320 Because the education level of the middle to upper class in Germany 00:22:30.320 --> 00:22:33.920 was directly the result of the lack of a copyright regime. 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:38.480 Because all these materials could be reproduced and disseminated far and wide. 00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:42.160 For instance, let's say even if you were living in Prussia where 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:45.040 they had a copyright regime, literally all you had to do was 00:22:45.040 --> 00:22:47.840 cross the border, and you could do whatever you wanted with regard, 00:22:47.840 --> 00:22:50.240 because there was no copyright over there. 00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:50.720 And so 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.040 the ideas of the Reformation were able to spread, because you had 00:22:57.600 --> 00:23:02.240 one, the ability to print them, two, the right, or at least 00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:06.560 the permission to distribute them, and three, people to read them. 00:23:07.120 --> 00:23:11.280 That did not exist really anywhere else in the world, so even 00:23:11.280 --> 00:23:15.120 in England it took quite a while for similar ideas to the 00:23:15.120 --> 00:23:17.680 Reformation to gain any real traction. 00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:20.800 And even then it was largely political. 00:23:21.120 --> 00:23:24.560 But what we're really dealing with here is 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:28.160 the foundations of capitalism. 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:33.760 Because that's what you had starting in England and the US at 00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:34.560 this time. 00:23:34.560 --> 00:23:41.280 And so along with that comes the commodification of knowledge, information, things 00:23:41.280 --> 00:23:45.120 like that, which is a totally foreign way of looking at things 00:23:45.120 --> 00:23:48.000 to the medieval and earlier mindset. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.880 Because those living in earlier times would have seen knowledge and information, 00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:56.560 these things, they saw them as a product of the whole, a 00:23:56.560 --> 00:24:00.160 product of the nation, of the society, it wasn't seen just as 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:03.200 the produ the product of one person's mind that he could claim 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:06.960 exclusively as his own and do with as he pleased. 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:09.760 Because there was more of a communitarian outlook. 00:24:10.800 --> 00:24:14.880 the term intellectual property is an oxymoron. 00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:17.120 It it's an absurdity on its face. 00:24:17.520 --> 00:24:20.240 if I have an idea, which is what this podcast is about, 00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:23.520 it's your ideas and my ideas that we're sharing with people, we 00:24:23.520 --> 00:24:24.560 don't have a paywall. 00:24:24.560 --> 00:24:26.320 We'll never have a paywall because we're just going to say no 00:24:26.320 --> 00:24:27.920 paywall. Yeah. 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:29.120 There's no paywall here. 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:32.720 and it's not it's not that there's no commercial viability to what 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:33.520 we do. 00:24:33.520 --> 00:24:37.360 It's that we believe that what we are saying may have some 00:24:37.360 --> 00:24:38.400 value to other people. 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:40.800 And that's not putting a price tag on it. 00:24:40.800 --> 00:24:44.480 That's saying that if you think that anything that we say has 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:47.200 any value, we want you to hear it. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:49.440 And if you agree, that's your idea. 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:50.880 You don't need to credit us. 00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:54.000 If you think the same thing that we think about anything, that's 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:54.560 your idea. 00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:55.680 It's in your mind. 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:58.000 There's no transfer of property there. 00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:00.320 it's a sharing of ideas. 00:25:00.320 --> 00:25:03.680 And so this regime that has arranged in the West in the 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:08.240 last two centuries with the idea that the an idea itself can 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:09.280 be property. 00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:11.760 I we'll do a future episode where we we look at the 00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:13.920 Ten Commandments and how they treat property. 00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:16.640 Because the whole thing, the the the entire second table is about 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:21.840 property. It's about real property, which is real estate, like land, and 00:25:21.840 --> 00:25:22.960 it's about chattels. 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:25.920 It's about the things that you own in your household. 00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:29.840 Intellectual property is a legal fiction. 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:33.040 it is not it's not a an actual thing. 00:25:33.040 --> 00:25:37.760 It's n there's we we've been raised in a society where we 00:25:37.760 --> 00:25:40.640 just assume that well like you said, you know, the the the 00:25:40.800 --> 00:25:42.320 workers do his wages. 00:25:42.320 --> 00:25:43.840 What's funny is that 00:25:44.800 --> 00:25:48.560 the reading that most people apply to that today is Keynesianism. 00:25:48.560 --> 00:25:51.760 They want to take Keynes and the labor theory of value and 00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:54.480 try to put it back into scripture, which is comical on so 00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:57.360 many levels, it's that deserves an episode. 00:25:57.360 --> 00:25:58.080 It's so evil. 00:25:58.080 --> 00:25:59.840 Like it's just insane. 00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:00.160 But 00:26:01.120 --> 00:26:04.160 when you hire someone, you owe them, you should pay them what 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:05.440 you agreed to. 00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:08.720 The fact that someone worked really hard on something doesn't make the 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.280 thing that they worked really hard on worth anything. 00:26:11.280 --> 00:26:13.200 You know, C Cory, you and I spend you know a number 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:14.480 of hours a week preparing for this. 00:26:14.480 --> 00:26:17.200 We spend a bunch of money on equipment and setup. 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.280 Does that make the podcast worth anything? 00:26:19.280 --> 00:26:21.440 No. That's those are sunk costs. 00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:23.760 That is that is a cost that we put into the thing. 00:26:23.760 --> 00:26:25.760 In our case, never expecting to receive anything. 00:26:25.760 --> 00:26:29.520 We'll never receive anything for because even if you know again, this 00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:32.720 is never this is not commercially viable, but even if it were 00:26:32.800 --> 00:26:35.360 as a matter of principle, we want 00:26:37.040 --> 00:26:39.280 we think that these are ideas we're spreading. 00:26:39.280 --> 00:26:41.600 And I think that's what's really funny is that when when TED 00:26:41.600 --> 00:26:44.480 Talks came along, all that stuff is free, all that content is 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:47.440 free. Now they I think they charge you to like actually physically 00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:52.160 attend because they're great networking events, but the videos and the contents 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:55.760 that are produced in TED Talks where the tagline is ideas worth 00:26:55.760 --> 00:26:58.720 spreading, it's all free to anyone in the world. 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:01.280 Copy Copyright is the opposite. 00:27:01.520 --> 00:27:04.960 Copyright is the idea of saying you have an idea that's worth 00:27:04.960 --> 00:27:08.400 locking up, that's worth keeping in a box until someone hands you 00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:11.280 money, and then you can dole it out to them piecemeal. 00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:14.480 And the reason we're talking about this today is that this has 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:18.960 profound theological import, 'cause there are arguments to be made about the 00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:20.800 the copyright regime in general. 00:27:20.800 --> 00:27:23.040 Obviously we both think it's illegitimate. 00:27:23.040 --> 00:27:28.000 But the particular case that's so vitally important for us as a 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.120 church, particularly with the internet today, is whether we should continue doing 00:27:33.120 --> 00:27:35.520 these things as we've always done them. 00:27:35.520 --> 00:27:39.200 And so the reason I mentioned marginal cost up front is that 00:27:39.600 --> 00:27:44.960 when the internet came about, the marginal cost of reproducing an idea 00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:47.280 digitally is literally zero. 00:27:47.840 --> 00:27:49.680 it's there's no cost. 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.880 when you say you give someone a file, you're not giving them 00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:53.440 a file. 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.080 You're making a copy of a file and then they have it. 00:27:56.080 --> 00:27:58.240 You have the file and now they have the file. 00:27:58.240 --> 00:27:59.760 There are two files. 00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:04.880 So no property exchanged hands because that would if property is inherently 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:07.360 finite and it's inherently material. 00:28:07.360 --> 00:28:09.440 There's no such thing as as imaginary property. 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:12.480 I mean that's that's the basis of things like meta and some 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:15.440 of the other VR schemes where they want people to to pay 00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:16.640 for virtual property. 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:18.080 It's just a cash grab. 00:28:18.320 --> 00:28:22.640 it's it's gross and it's it's capitalist and it certainly has no 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:24.880 place in theology. 00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:30.880 So what happened in the church is that we went from scrolls, 00:28:30.800 --> 00:28:37.360 to code codices, to books, to mass-produced books, to a publishing industry. 00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:39.600 And we're going to talk a little bit about, because we're both 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:43.280 Missouri Senate, we're going to talk about the Missouri Synod's own captive 00:28:43.440 --> 00:28:46.240 arm uh Concordia Publishing House or CPH. 00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:47.280 But this isn't about us. 00:28:47.280 --> 00:28:49.920 This isn't about Lutherans and it's not about CPH. 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:54.400 Every larger denomination has similar setups or they work with others who 00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:56.080 are doing this work for them. 00:28:56.080 --> 00:28:59.120 And because we're all in the Western context, we all have the 00:28:59.120 --> 00:28:59.760 same idea. 00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:03.760 The idea of intellectual property of if an author author writes something, 00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:05.760 you gotta pay him if you want to have access to it. 00:29:05.760 --> 00:29:07.120 And that has to happen first. 00:29:07.120 --> 00:29:09.680 You don't get the thing until you pay for it. 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:10.000 And 00:29:11.120 --> 00:29:15.280 the notion of intellectual property theft, you know, as Corey, as you 00:29:15.280 --> 00:29:17.760 mentioned, there's there's no theft occurring here. 00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:19.760 We want to be very explicit about this. 00:29:19.760 --> 00:29:24.880 If the marginal cost for reproducing a digital file is zero, if 00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:29.200 I give you a file and I still have the file, no 00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:31.440 one can possibly steal the file. 00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:35.680 And we're not talking about like unauthorized access to the works that 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:39.360 a corporation keeps locked down because they're vital to its business. 00:29:39.360 --> 00:29:45.040 When someone produces what we call intellectual property, whether it's an article 00:29:45.120 --> 00:29:48.400 or a book or or a podcast or a radio show or 00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:49.760 a TV program. 00:29:49.760 --> 00:29:52.480 All those things are called intellectual property. 00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:56.240 They only have value if other people see them. 00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.400 When you're talking about something like industrial secrets, corporate secrets, their value 00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:02.400 is that they're hidden. 00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:05.440 There's no value in a podcast that no one ever hears. 00:30:05.440 --> 00:30:08.400 That's that that would be the most The most important There are 00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:10.000 so many of them.. 00:30:10.800 --> 00:30:12.800 Yes. Thankfully ours is not among them. 00:30:12.800 --> 00:30:15.120 I'm I've been really pleased with how this has taken off. 00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:17.680 But I mean, we're always going to be niche and that that's 00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:21.760 fine. Because again, we believe these are ideas worth spreading and that 00:30:21.760 --> 00:30:26.240 means giving them away for free, explicitly, consciously, and intentionally. 00:30:26.560 --> 00:30:29.840 And today we live in a in an environment where the church 00:30:29.840 --> 00:30:31.360 won't do that. 00:30:31.360 --> 00:30:31.680 So 00:30:32.560 --> 00:30:35.040 just as a couple examples, um 00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:41.040 Pastor Fisk, Jonathan Fisk, whom I had mentioned previously, and uh Pastor 00:30:41.040 --> 00:30:46.480 uh Brian Wolfmuller have both priests previously had book deals with CPH, 00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:49.840 and then they've done additional books that they have not published with 00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:53.280 CPH. And And they don't really go into it in public, but 00:30:53.280 --> 00:30:57.200 I've been told by friends who've heard them go off about the 00:30:57.200 --> 00:31:00.560 way they were treated by the church's publisher. 00:31:00.560 --> 00:31:04.240 And one of the principal objections that is is had about these 00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:08.240 deals is the same objection that you hear from every at rap 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:12.880 artist and music artist, and pretty much ever anyone who's in this 00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:17.440 space of work for hire and then selling the work is that 00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:20.320 the people who own the presses, the people who own the machinery 00:31:20.320 --> 00:31:24.720 of reproduction, steal away your rights, your artificial rights. 00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:28.720 So when these guys wrote their books and had CPH publish them, 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:30.560 they thought great, the church is going to do it, they're going 00:31:30.560 --> 00:31:31.440 to do a nice job. 00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:36.400 CPH printing is usually decent by modern standards anyway. 00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:39.600 What they didn't realize was that they were signing away all their 00:31:39.600 --> 00:31:41.200 intellectual property rights. 00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:44.320 So when Brian wanted to give away a couple of his books 00:31:44.320 --> 00:31:47.600 that CPH had published, CPH wouldn't let him do it. 00:31:47.600 --> 00:31:48.640 Because you know why? 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:50.800 CPH wants to sell those. 00:31:50.800 --> 00:31:53.680 And they can only make money by selling the books. 00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:56.240 And we'll get into the making money thing because we're not We're 00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:58.320 not saying you can't make money on this stuff. 00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:02.320 We're saying there are ways to make money that don't involve refusing 00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:03.920 to give things away. 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:07.280 Which only sounds contradictory because we live in this 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:11.840 hellscape where everything has to have a price tag up front. 00:32:11.840 --> 00:32:12.880 But that's not natural. 00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:14.160 It's not normal. 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:19.280 And so Brian, if you go to Wolfmueller.co now, his website, he 00:32:19.280 --> 00:32:20.720 gives away most of the stuff he writes. 00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:23.920 Now I think everything that he's written since his CPH deal, you 00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:26.720 can download a PDF or you can buy a copy from him. 00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:28.800 And he he charges as little as he can for the print 00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:30.160 on demand copy. 00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:32.640 So if you want a physical copy, he can get you one 00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:34.000 and you have to pay for that. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:34.960 And that's reasonable. 00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:37.040 If you go into Barnes and Noble and you walk out with 00:32:37.040 --> 00:32:40.560 a book, you've stolen something because they have one fewer book in 00:32:40.560 --> 00:32:43.120 their inventory than they had before and you have a book that 00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:44.480 you didn't pay for. 00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:48.080 If you download the same book from Brian's website and you get 00:32:48.080 --> 00:32:51.600 the PDF, no one has been denied anything. 00:32:51.600 --> 00:32:53.360 Now, I don't know if he has a tip jar. 00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:55.520 Some people do, and I think tip jars are a good thing, 00:32:55.520 --> 00:32:56.960 as as you mentioned before. 00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:59.040 If you find value in something or if you just want to 00:32:59.040 --> 00:33:00.720 say, hey, thanks, I like this. 00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:06.000 The idea of patronage has tremendous historical merit. 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.680 That's why Patreon exists today. 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.640 The Patreon is a play on the word patron, where the idea 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:14.720 that rather than having a single very wealthy benefactor paying someone to 00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:16.080 produce works of art. 00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:18.640 Maybe a lot of people could get together and pay a small 00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:21.760 amount and achieve similar results and it's worked pretty well. 00:33:21.760 --> 00:33:24.320 And the model is that you say, hey, I think this is 00:33:24.320 --> 00:33:26.320 a good idea, I'll chip in a few bucks. 00:33:26.320 --> 00:33:28.960 When they hit their thresholds, they produce the thing and make it 00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:30.880 available. That's awesome. 00:33:31.360 --> 00:33:36.160 that's an entirely scalable way of doing things that allows creators, and 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:38.720 there's no there's no doubt that someone who's writing a book is 00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:41.760 doing something creative, just like we're doing something creative here. 00:33:41.760 --> 00:33:43.600 I mean, it takes a few hours to do it. 00:33:43.760 --> 00:33:47.280 Doesn't mean it's worth anything to charge you, but if you think, 00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:49.760 hey, I you know that's worth three bucks worth of entertainment to 00:33:49.760 --> 00:33:51.280 me, send them some money. 00:33:51.280 --> 00:33:55.200 That's something that could actually work, but it can only work when 00:33:55.600 --> 00:33:59.280 the property is first given away, when when the the non-property, when 00:33:59.280 --> 00:34:02.240 the content, which is content is kind of the modern word for 00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:05.440 that, when the the package of whatever it is, whether it's the 00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:10.240 MP4 for this this audio file that's about 160 megs, or you 00:34:10.240 --> 00:34:13.200 know, a 10 megabyte PDF for a book. 00:34:13.200 --> 00:34:16.800 When you get that, you now have all of the content. 00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:19.840 It's digital, which isn't necessarily as good as physical in a lot 00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:20.240 of ways. 00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:24.480 And so there's there's potentially a market to buy the physical good, 00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:26.800 even if you can get the digital one for free. 00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:28.880 And we see that all over the place today. 00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:31.440 And so there are different ways of approaching this problem. 00:34:39.040 --> 00:34:39.440 Aaron Powell 00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:42.560 We're actually discussing two different kinds of rights here, and it is 00:34:42.560 --> 00:34:46.480 probably a good idea to distinguish them quickly just to make sure 00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:50.000 that those who are unfamiliar with this area know what is going 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:53.680 on. When it comes to copyright, there are two kinds of rights. 00:34:53.680 --> 00:34:57.840 There are economic rights, which is what we have been discussing, and 00:34:57.840 --> 00:35:00.480 then there are what are called moral rights. 00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:04.960 Under the Bern Convention, which is the international convention to which most 00:35:05.200 --> 00:35:09.120 Western states and some others are party, there are at least two 00:35:09.120 --> 00:35:12.400 rights that you have to protect two moral rights. 00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.120 Those are paternity and integrity. 00:35:15.120 --> 00:35:18.720 The right of paternity is that you have to attribute the work 00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:20.240 to the creator. 00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:24.080 The right of integrity is that the creator has to have some 00:35:24.080 --> 00:35:26.240 ability to object to 00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:31.120 destruction or alteration of the work that is then attributed to the 00:35:31.120 --> 00:35:36.080 creator. So there's a difference, for instance, between parody and putting forth 00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:38.560 a parody under the name of the original author, that would be 00:35:38.560 --> 00:35:40.640 defamation, there's a difference there. 00:35:40.640 --> 00:35:44.400 And so we're not dealing with moral rights. 00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:48.160 It's perfectly reasonable to have a system where the author has some 00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:51.600 sort of moral right where you have to attribute the work to 00:35:51.600 --> 00:35:56.880 the author or you have to not put out false work under 00:35:56.880 --> 00:35:58.000 the author's name. 00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:00.080 That's totally different from economic rights. 00:36:00.080 --> 00:36:03.600 We're dealing with the economic rights and that part of the copyright 00:36:03.600 --> 00:36:05.600 regime. 00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:06.160 Yeah, 00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:10.480 absolutely. If someone does an adaptation of a hymn, for example, and 00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:13.600 they add a verse or maybe they change the tune or tweak 00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:16.880 the words, it's entirely reasonable and there's no reason 00:36:18.160 --> 00:36:22.160 why the law or even our approach as a church, as Christians, 00:36:22.160 --> 00:36:23.520 couldn't treat those separately. 00:36:23.520 --> 00:36:25.920 Just say, yes, if I took your hymn and I thought it 00:36:25.920 --> 00:36:27.920 was a great hymn, but I wanted to add a verse and 00:36:27.920 --> 00:36:31.120 I wanted to tweak something, uh I should give you credit for 00:36:31.120 --> 00:36:34.240 what you have done and then I should take credit for the 00:36:34.240 --> 00:36:36.080 fact that I modified it. 00:36:36.080 --> 00:36:39.200 Not b both to take credit for the new work that I've 00:36:39.200 --> 00:36:42.720 done, but also to absolve you of the changes that I made 00:36:42.720 --> 00:36:43.520 to your work. 00:36:43.600 --> 00:36:45.520 And that's as you said, those are the moral rights. 00:36:45.520 --> 00:36:49.440 It's not it's not about denying for you know, if if someone 00:36:49.520 --> 00:36:50.640 and we wouldn't even care. 00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:56.160 Like I talked about us saying absolutely we don't people yeah but 00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:57.200 that's 00:36:57.680 --> 00:36:57.840 you 00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:00.000 can waive them in the US incidentally. 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.560 Yeah. Yeah, and that and that's part of if you look at 00:37:02.560 --> 00:37:06.400 the Creative Commons copyright clauses, you can basically put together your own 00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:10.640 Creative Commons license that will allow you to waive effectively everything. 00:37:10.640 --> 00:37:15.120 You can waive commercial rights, you can waive attribution, uh, you can 00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:18.480 you can effectively waive anything, but you can do a piecemeal. 00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:21.840 And they've they've created the the draft language in such a way 00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:27.120 that it's consistent with the copyright law that's trying very hard to 00:37:27.120 --> 00:37:28.560 make that impossible. 00:37:28.640 --> 00:37:29.600 Unless you're in French. 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:30.000 So 00:37:33.040 --> 00:37:36.000 You cannot waive your moral rights in France and also there are 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:39.440 there are rights that your heirs get and the the French regime 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:41.520 is its own special thing. 00:37:41.520 --> 00:37:44.400 It causes problems in EU law. 00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:45.360 Because it's French. 00:37:45.520 --> 00:37:46.720 Unsurprisingly. Yeah. 00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:51.680 So it to just to get back briefly to to the internet 00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:56.240 thing, I just want to make clear that when we're talking, the 00:37:56.240 --> 00:38:00.320 the the purpose of this episode is to discuss the spreading of 00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:04.560 theological content, of of sound doctrine in particular, not only the Bible 00:38:04.720 --> 00:38:08.560 and in variations of the Bible, but commentaries on the Bible, books 00:38:08.560 --> 00:38:12.880 expositing what is in the Bible, general theological works. 00:38:13.280 --> 00:38:16.960 The reason that we're carving these out from the broader discussion of 00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:22.720 the so-called intellectual property regime is that if these things come from 00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:25.920 God, if God gave us the Bible and God gave us reason, 00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:29.760 and we apply reason to the Bible and produce a faithful work 00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:34.800 of reason, like for example, the Book of Concord, the idea that 00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:39.440 a man, or let alone a corporation, would say, I have a 00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:41.360 legal claim on this. 00:38:41.360 --> 00:38:44.880 I will sue you if you do not give me money to 00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:45.920 have access to it. 00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:47.440 In whatever form. 00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:49.520 We're asserting here that that is evil. 00:38:49.520 --> 00:38:52.320 Apart from whether or not copyright in general is evil, I think 00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:53.760 they're the same question. 00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:57.360 But even if you say, Okay, well copyright in general can have 00:38:57.360 --> 00:39:02.240 benefit for fiction authors, for example, or people making, you know, secular 00:39:02.240 --> 00:39:03.440 songs, fine. 00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:04.480 We don't care about that. 00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:08.480 But if you're saying that you can say something about God, that 00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:12.800 you can write something about God, and then you have a a 00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:17.680 legal right to harm others financially if they don't give you money. 00:39:17.680 --> 00:39:21.360 money for it on whatever s fee schedule you set. 00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:25.280 I think not only is that evil, I think it's I think 00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:26.320 it's profoundly evil. 00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:29.040 I think it's a direct violation of the cert first in the 00:39:29.040 --> 00:39:29.920 second commandments. 00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.800 First commandment commandment is you sh you shall have no other gods 00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:33.440 before me. 00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:36.800 And the second commandment is the uh thou shalt not take the 00:39:36.800 --> 00:39:38.640 name of the Lord thy God in vain. 00:39:38.640 --> 00:39:42.800 And in Luther's explanation on the far small and large catechism, he 00:39:42.800 --> 00:39:48.000 makes clear that that's talking specifically about the the discussion of theology 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:51.360 about not making false claims about God and about making sure that 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:53.760 your claims in God's name are true. 00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:57.200 Now, if you're obeying the second commandment and your claims about God 00:39:57.200 --> 00:39:59.920 are true, how are those your how are the is that your 00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:03.440 property? How does it belong to you, something which is true that 00:40:03.440 --> 00:40:07.920 is said about God, to encumber that in such a way that 00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:13.200 others are prohibited from having access to it is actively destructive to 00:40:13.200 --> 00:40:14.080 the gospel. 00:40:14.080 --> 00:40:17.280 What is the point of talking about God if if you're telling 00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.280 the truth and other people can't hear you? 00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:20.720 Why would you pay all that? 00:40:20.720 --> 00:40:23.680 And yet that's precisely what we see virtually all of our churches 00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:26.320 doing. We're picking on the LCMS because it's what we are. 00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:27.440 It's our backyard. 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:31.040 We are morally responsible for the sins of those who act in 00:40:31.040 --> 00:40:32.880 our name and with our money. 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:35.440 Even if we're not doing it, even if we object to it, 00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:38.720 they're still doing it and they're doing it because we are enabling 00:40:38.720 --> 00:40:41.840 and permitting and we have not yet prevented them. 00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:46.720 Uh this came up in twenty sixteen at the Sonical Convention where 00:40:46.720 --> 00:40:53.600 one of the districts proposed a synotical resolution to ask the the 00:40:53.760 --> 00:40:57.920 nineteen eighty six small catechism be placed in the public domain for 00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:00.720 this very reason, for the reason that it was a clear exposition 00:41:00.720 --> 00:41:05.840 of sound doctrine, that CPH owned the copyright to it, and that 00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:09.360 we had the right to make it freely available to the world, 00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:12.240 and that that was a moral good, that that was obedience to 00:41:12.240 --> 00:41:15.840 God to say, hey, this thing that by the way was originally 00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:17.520 in German 500 years ago. 00:41:17.520 --> 00:41:21.120 So yes, we've tacked on some new content, but the idea that 00:41:21.120 --> 00:41:25.440 the translation and then the additions somehow make that something that you 00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:28.720 can have a moral claim on if an Financial claim. 00:41:28.720 --> 00:41:31.840 At the at the convention, it was said, let's not do that, 00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:33.120 let's make this available to the world. 00:41:33.120 --> 00:41:34.320 We think it's valuable. 00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:37.360 And many people stood up in support of that and said, yes, 00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:39.120 this is a wonderful idea as Christians. 00:41:39.120 --> 00:41:42.240 Why wouldn't we give away the small catechism and all the things 00:41:42.240 --> 00:41:44.400 we've added to it to everyone. 00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:48.080 And what happened next was somebody handed a mic to the lawyer 00:41:48.160 --> 00:41:51.440 and the things that he said were apparently so frightening to all 00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:54.880 the pastors in the audience that they were terrified and they were 00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:58.320 convinced that they were gonna be sued if they let the small 00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:01.760 catechism be made available to the world. 00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:05.520 And the fact that that lawyer stood up and Matt Harrison handed 00:42:05.520 --> 00:42:08.400 him the mic, and then that was the end of the discussion, 00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:12.160 is an example of the sort of faithlessness and foolishness that happens 00:42:12.160 --> 00:42:14.640 when people don't have worldly understanding. 00:42:14.640 --> 00:42:18.160 But I think more profoundly it shows that you can have something 00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:21.120 that calls itself a church that at the end of the day 00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:27.120 is really a corporation and is acting in corporate interests over against 00:42:27.120 --> 00:42:30.640 the interests of the gospel, even while doing it in the name 00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:31.200 of God. 00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:35.360 And so we're talking about differentiating between what can we do that 00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:38.960 will not be poor stewardship, that will not just incinerate money and 00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:41.680 cause us to no longer be able to do anything, and what 00:42:41.680 --> 00:42:44.640 can we do to obey God to share sound doctrine and make 00:42:44.640 --> 00:42:47.760 it available to the world in a sustainable way. 00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:51.360 Because that's a that's a conversation worth having and those are ideas 00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:52.640 worth spreading. 00:42:53.200 --> 00:42:53.360 And 00:42:53.360 --> 00:42:56.640 I would just want to add that whatever that attorney with a 00:42:56.640 --> 00:43:00.320 microphone, because not all attorneys with microphones are bad, but whatever that 00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:04.000 attorney with a microphone happened to say, it was of course complete 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.040 BS. Because there are ways you can place works into the public 00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:13.680 domain and you have You have no liability that flows from that. 00:43:13.680 --> 00:43:15.200 I mean, yes, okay. 00:43:15.200 --> 00:43:19.200 If you are giving instructions on how to make explosives, that may 00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:21.440 be different, but that's not what we're doing. 00:43:21.440 --> 00:43:24.640 Yes, what we're handling is actually m more dangerous and more important 00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:28.720 than how to make explosives or weapons, but there's no liability for 00:43:28.720 --> 00:43:30.560 it under the US legal regime. 00:43:30.560 --> 00:43:32.560 So there's there's no actual concern there. 00:43:32.560 --> 00:43:37.360 Apparently one of the pastors should have brought a plus one attorney 00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:42.880 with him to give the counterpoint to corporate counsel whatever was said 00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:43.680 there. 00:43:44.160 --> 00:43:44.320 I 00:43:44.560 --> 00:43:47.600 I think it's worth noting that even if you assume assume for 00:43:47.600 --> 00:43:50.880 the sake of argument that say there was something in the small 00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.160 catechism that was copyrighted by somebody else. 00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.480 And so we couldn't give it away because we can't give away 00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:59.840 something that we don't have the rights to, apart from publishing. 00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:04.960 Yes. Either remove it or confess that CPH, if they had incorporated 00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:08.400 something that was copyrighted by others who would not give us some 00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:11.600 unlimited rights of distribution, that was sin. 00:44:11.600 --> 00:44:15.040 That was error to to encumber the word of God in such 00:44:15.040 --> 00:44:17.040 a way that it couldn't even be shared. 00:44:17.040 --> 00:44:21.440 So either way that situation in twenty sixteen can be parsed, it 00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:22.640 was an act of evil. 00:44:22.640 --> 00:44:25.760 Either the evil had occurred years before and they had then just 00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:28.480 stumbled into this pit where there was no way to get out 00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:32.240 without doing harm, or there was deception on the part of the 00:44:32.240 --> 00:44:36.160 attorney that bullied and frightened everyone into not sharing the word of 00:44:36.160 --> 00:44:39.360 God when we're commanded by God to do that. 00:44:39.680 --> 00:44:42.480 This is not a case of oh I guess we can have 00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:45.120 a discussion and it maybe could go one way or the other. 00:44:45.120 --> 00:44:48.240 God commands us to spread the word of God, and that includes 00:44:48.240 --> 00:44:51.440 not just the text of the Bible itself, but anything that is 00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:53.440 sound doctrine that's derived from it. 00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:57.520 If you have something good that is a clear exposition of scripture 00:44:57.600 --> 00:45:01.840 that will be fruitful for the the benefit of the faithful anywhere 00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:04.880 in the world, and you refuse to share that unless they pay 00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:07.280 you, you're doing something evil. 00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:11.200 And if you're first concern is how do I get paid, how 00:45:11.200 --> 00:45:12.320 are you a Christian? 00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:15.440 Like there are parables that talk about people getting paid, but it's 00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:18.400 generally pagans that are concerned about their wages. 00:45:18.400 --> 00:45:22.800 And or it's as you said earlier, it's about the inverse relationship, 00:45:22.800 --> 00:45:26.560 where it's those who owe the wages are due to pay them 00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:29.280 in order to be just. 00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:30.640 That's a question of justice. 00:45:30.640 --> 00:45:32.880 That's not a question of economics. 00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:33.520 And And 00:45:34.720 --> 00:45:41.120 we we need to get Christians to understand that there are effectively 00:45:41.120 --> 00:45:44.880 three types of content today, well four really. 00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:49.200 In the printed realm, you have the very most premium you know 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:56.400 cowhide you know or calf or whatever uh very nicely bound leather 00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:58.400 bibles on very high quality paper. 00:45:58.560 --> 00:46:00.320 Might cost you north of two hundred bucks. 00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:02.400 It's an heirloom quality bible. 00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:04.560 It's something that you're going to want to give to your kids 00:46:04.560 --> 00:46:07.280 and your grandkids and hope you'll hope is that it'll be in 00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:11.600 your family for generations long after you're gone. 00:46:11.600 --> 00:46:14.240 Then there are the Bibles that are, you know, the same content, 00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:18.800 same word of God, but they don't have all the bells and 00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:22.800 whistles. They don't have the extra features that don't alter the Word 00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:24.960 of God, but make it, you know, not as pleasant of a 00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:26.160 pack tactile experience. 00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:29.440 You know, the paper's not as expensive, the binding's not as nice. 00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:31.680 Maybe it won't last as long, but you know, it's a bible. 00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:33.760 If you wear your Bible out, you've been blessed. 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:37.440 Um as long as it doesn't happen, you know, three months. 00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:42.640 And then you have digital things where there's freely available content that 00:46:42.640 --> 00:46:43.920 it's exact same content. 00:46:44.160 --> 00:46:46.400 it's a Bible, you know, it's a PDF or an ebook or 00:46:46.400 --> 00:46:49.600 whatever that you can just get and you have access wherever you 00:46:49.600 --> 00:46:51.600 can read that sort of Sort of file. 00:46:51.600 --> 00:46:55.440 And in between between those, you have the paywall, where there's an 00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:56.560 artificial 00:46:57.520 --> 00:47:02.960 money changer standing between you and the content which was given to 00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:05.600 you by God, but you have to pay in order to get 00:47:05.600 --> 00:47:06.240 to it. 00:47:06.240 --> 00:47:09.600 And while Bibles are not typically paywalled, although actually most of the 00:47:09.600 --> 00:47:12.080 translations are, I think like even on the logos. 00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:13.040 Yeah. Yeah. 00:47:13.360 --> 00:47:15.280 and precisely because because of copyright. 00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:17.040 Well, we worked hard on this translation. 00:47:17.040 --> 00:47:18.480 We want to get paid for it. 00:47:18.560 --> 00:47:21.280 Well, didn't you work on the translation because you thought it was 00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:24.720 important that the word of God be clearly expressed to people in 00:47:24.720 --> 00:47:25.760 allowing people to understand. 00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:29.440 Yeah. And that's really what this comes down to. 00:47:29.440 --> 00:47:31.280 And that's why I mentioned the first commandment. 00:47:31.520 --> 00:47:34.720 what do you fear, love, and trust the most? 00:47:34.720 --> 00:47:36.320 Is it getting paid? 00:47:36.720 --> 00:47:39.920 do you as an author fear that if you don't get paid 00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:42.960 for your book or for your translation, the That God will let 00:47:42.960 --> 00:47:46.960 you starve because there are verses about that too. 00:47:46.960 --> 00:47:49.840 Or do you believe the way you're doing is service to God 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:52.720 and that your reward will be great in heaven? 00:47:52.720 --> 00:47:54.400 And it's nice to get paid. 00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:57.200 And we'll we'll talk in a minute about the ways to get 00:47:57.200 --> 00:47:59.840 paid that don't involve paywalling. 00:47:59.840 --> 00:48:03.680 Because again, this is not an attack on people being compensated for 00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:05.040 their hard work. 00:48:05.040 --> 00:48:06.400 I want to see more of that. 00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:09.360 I want to see more authors being paid more money for producing 00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:10.720 more good works, not less. 00:48:11.280 --> 00:48:13.280 we're pointing in the opposite direction. 00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:16.720 And as you illustrated with the Germany versus England case, the way 00:48:16.720 --> 00:48:22.240 we're doing it today is although it seems counterintuitive, it's actually counterproductive 00:48:22.240 --> 00:48:23.200 the way we're doing 00:48:23.200 --> 00:48:24.160 it And 00:48:24.160 --> 00:48:27.040 there's also a very real bias here that's 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:29.680 almost normalcy bias. 00:48:29.680 --> 00:48:31.200 This is the way we've always done it. 00:48:31.200 --> 00:48:32.960 This is just the way things work. 00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:36.000 Our synod, in the case of the LCMS, was founded by a 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:41.840 man who was born before copyright law existed where he was born. 00:48:41.840 --> 00:48:45.440 So this is not something that has been around for a particularly 00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:50.320 long time, it is not particularly entrenched entrenched, it is entrenched only 00:48:50.320 --> 00:48:53.600 insofar as it makes billions of dollars. 00:48:53.600 --> 00:48:56.080 And that is the reason this is 00:48:57.600 --> 00:49:02.080 such a major part of our legal system and defended so strongly. 00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:07.120 Particularly by large corporations, Disney, as mentioned earlier, the Mickey Mouse Protection 00:49:07.120 --> 00:49:11.360 Act, being one of the big defenders of this, and we've gone 00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:15.600 into the problems with Disney and some of these large corporations before. 00:49:15.600 --> 00:49:16.560 But when I was thinking about 00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:22.320 the issue of copyright and theology, I think one important question is 00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:25.760 to ask what is the purpose of these things? 00:49:25.760 --> 00:49:28.000 What is the purpose of copyright? 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:33.200 Well the purpose of copyright theoretically is defended as compensation for those 00:49:33.200 --> 00:49:36.160 who put in the creative or other effort. 00:49:36.160 --> 00:49:40.800 We've demonstrated that's not really how it plays out in reality, but 00:49:40.800 --> 00:49:42.400 that is the argument. 00:49:42.480 --> 00:49:46.640 But even if you take copyright as achieving its purpose, well what 00:49:46.640 --> 00:49:48.640 is the purpose of theology? 00:49:48.640 --> 00:49:53.120 The purpose of theology is to spread the truth. 00:49:53.120 --> 00:49:56.240 That's what it should be, at least at its best, and so 00:49:56.240 --> 00:49:58.880 anything that gets in the way of that is contrary to the 00:49:58.880 --> 00:50:00.560 purpose of theology. 00:50:00.560 --> 00:50:03.840 Well copyright gets in the way of that because copyright makes it 00:50:03.840 --> 00:50:06.960 more difficult to obtain the works. 00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:12.800 Particularly today when there is no reason everything couldn't be free online. 00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:17.280 Now, of course, you have the problem of quantity versus quality, but 00:50:17.520 --> 00:50:22.720 if you have a reliable production house like Concordia Publishing House, and 00:50:22.720 --> 00:50:26.320 you have them putting their materials online, then you have that stamp 00:50:26.320 --> 00:50:29.200 that lets people know this is actually worth something. 00:50:29.200 --> 00:50:31.040 Go here and read these materials. 00:50:31.040 --> 00:50:33.440 Thankfully, we do have some things online. 00:50:33.440 --> 00:50:36.000 We have the bookofconcord.org. 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:40.080 We have that website, so we have the small catechism, the triglotta 00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:44.160 edition, so we have it online in German, Latin, and English, but 00:50:45.120 --> 00:50:48.160 we don't have some of the additions, some of the explanations, some 00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:52.400 of the the modern translations, and I would happily put those on 00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:53.360 the website. 00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:56.080 I would put in the effort to put them up, but I 00:50:56.080 --> 00:50:58.320 know that CPH will not allow it. 00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:00.640 And we have the same problem with so many other works that 00:51:00.640 --> 00:51:04.560 are produced by our Synod and other groups have the same problems. 00:51:04.560 --> 00:51:09.360 For instance, try and find the entire backlog of the Lutheran Witness, 00:51:09.360 --> 00:51:13.520 or God forbid you're trying to find the backlog der Lutheraner. 00:51:13.520 --> 00:51:15.040 You won't find it. 00:51:15.040 --> 00:51:19.360 Someone at CPH I suspect probably has this material. 00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:20.800 It should be scanned. 00:51:20.800 --> 00:51:21.920 It should be online. 00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:22.960 These should be available. 00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:24.160 It should be searchable. 00:51:24.160 --> 00:51:29.440 You should be able to find this wealth from our forefathers that 00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:32.240 is supposed to be our legacy, is supposed to be something that 00:51:32.240 --> 00:51:35.200 was given to us by them, and we don't have access to 00:51:35.200 --> 00:51:38.320 it. Even members of Senate don't have access to it, let alone 00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:39.920 the rest of the world. 00:51:39.920 --> 00:51:43.040 And it's not as if it would cost a lot of money 00:51:43.040 --> 00:51:43.920 to do this. 00:51:43.920 --> 00:51:47.840 Digitizing these materials and putting them online is trivial in cost, and 00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:49.760 there are people who would be willing to work on it for 00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:54.400 free. If CPH was willing to just hand me the archive, I 00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:56.240 will make it available online for free. 00:51:56.240 --> 00:51:58.720 I will even create an index for it so people can find 00:51:58.720 --> 00:52:01.520 it. I know they won't do it, but I would put in 00:52:01.520 --> 00:52:05.440 the effort, the time, and whatever minimal cost there is in bandwidth 00:52:05.520 --> 00:52:07.520 if they were willing to let me do 00:52:07.520 --> 00:52:08.160 that. 00:52:08.560 --> 00:52:13.120 And I think it's worth talking about numbers just for a minute. 00:52:13.120 --> 00:52:15.760 Like talking about numbers on a podcast is a nightmare. 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:18.560 So I I'm I'm gonna try to paint just a I'm gonna 00:52:18.560 --> 00:52:20.480 try to paint a picture in your mind here. 00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:23.040 I'm not trying to give you a spreadsheet to copy down on 00:52:23.040 --> 00:52:24.160 a on a whiteboard. 00:52:24.160 --> 00:52:26.880 So you don't need to understand the numbers or remember them. 00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:29.280 I'm trying to give a sense of scale here. 00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:29.600 Um 00:52:30.720 --> 00:52:34.880 CPH is a wholly owned subsidiary of the LCMS. 00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:36.640 Both of those are nonprofits. 00:52:36.640 --> 00:52:41.200 Um, which means that they're uh although their financials are all very 00:52:41.600 --> 00:52:46.800 closely guarded secrets, they are required to file certain bare minimum filings 00:52:46.800 --> 00:52:48.080 with the IRS. 00:52:48.080 --> 00:52:51.760 Uh nonprofits are supposed to file 990s annually. 00:52:51.760 --> 00:52:56.000 Uh interestingly for CPH, the last 990 that I can find from 00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:57.520 them is 10 years old. 00:52:57.520 --> 00:53:02.080 Uh they've filed the amended form uh the 990T as recently as 00:53:02.160 --> 00:53:07.520 2019, but literally the only number on there is inventory or inventory 00:53:07.520 --> 00:53:10.640 plus investments, which I discovered looking at the 990. 00:53:10.640 --> 00:53:12.160 So these numbers are 10 years old. 00:53:12.160 --> 00:53:16.160 I find it incredibly suspicious and frankly offensive that a church is 00:53:16.160 --> 00:53:18.560 hiding information about financials. 00:53:18.560 --> 00:53:20.000 This should be an open book. 00:53:20.240 --> 00:53:24.480 There is no legitimate reason for our churches to be hiding the 00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:28.960 performance of it the organs that are being paid for, either by 00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:32.240 our congregations or by the money that we spend on books. 00:53:32.240 --> 00:53:34.800 And this is about money about books, so we're gonna get into 00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:39.680 that. So in twenty twelve, the IRS filing showed that CPH had 00:53:39.680 --> 00:53:42.560 about twenty million dollars in revenue from selling books. 00:53:42.560 --> 00:53:44.880 It was almost twenty million right on the nose. 00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:46.640 I have no idea what it is now. 00:53:46.640 --> 00:53:46.880 Um 00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:51.200 I can tell you from a sense of scale that I believe 00:53:51.200 --> 00:53:55.280 the reporting was like two hundred and sixty-five employees ten years ago. 00:53:55.280 --> 00:53:57.440 And on the website today it says they have about a hundred 00:53:57.440 --> 00:53:58.400 and sixty-five. 00:53:58.400 --> 00:54:00.560 So they've lost about a hundred employees. 00:54:00.560 --> 00:54:04.400 I would assume their revenue has probably improved both because of inflation 00:54:04.640 --> 00:54:06.560 and just because they've you know, 00:54:06.960 --> 00:54:07.680 who knows? 00:54:07.680 --> 00:54:08.720 It's a it's a secret. 00:54:08.880 --> 00:54:10.240 No one knows. 00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:13.200 There are a couple other numbers I think are very interesting. 00:54:13.200 --> 00:54:17.600 On that twenty million in revenue, CPH spent two point two million 00:54:17.600 --> 00:54:19.760 dollars on advertising. 00:54:19.760 --> 00:54:24.480 Now, I think that that goes directly to the idea of making 00:54:24.480 --> 00:54:26.400 content available for free. 00:54:26.400 --> 00:54:30.960 One of the goals of CPH is to produce, to publish, to 00:54:30.960 --> 00:54:33.920 make available content produced by Lutherans. 00:54:33.920 --> 00:54:37.520 Um, it should be exclusively Lutherans, and in theory, everything goes through 00:54:37.520 --> 00:54:41.600 doctrinal review, but given the amount of things that are not doctrinally 00:54:41.600 --> 00:54:44.240 sound, I think either that is not occurring or the people who 00:54:44.240 --> 00:54:47.200 are reviewing it are need to put need to be put under 00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:48.240 doctrinal review. 00:54:48.240 --> 00:54:51.200 Uh all of them are personally accountable to to Matt Harrison. 00:54:51.200 --> 00:54:53.920 So ultimately all those doctrinal errors belong to him alone 00:54:54.800 --> 00:54:58.240 because he is he's where the buck stops for this stuff. 00:54:58.240 --> 00:55:02.240 But CPH is there to produce content to be available. 00:55:02.240 --> 00:55:06.480 You know, you would think to the world if you're Christian. 00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:10.240 Think about what spending two twenty two point two million dollars on 00:55:10.240 --> 00:55:12.000 advertising means. 00:55:12.480 --> 00:55:17.040 they're doing that because I've been told that not only is CPH 00:55:17.600 --> 00:55:22.080 tasked with being profit neutral, they're not permitted to lose money. 00:55:22.080 --> 00:55:24.960 Not only in general, but I've been told, and I don't have 00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:28.720 confirmation of this, but I I believe it's probably true just because 00:55:28.720 --> 00:55:31.280 it's so consistent with ever everything else that we know and have 00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:38.720 observed. Not only is CPH going to be profitable or neutral on 00:55:38.960 --> 00:55:43.040 the overall enterprise, they can't lose money on any project. 00:55:43.360 --> 00:55:47.040 So anytime they do a new book of any sort, they have 00:55:47.040 --> 00:55:48.480 to make sure it sells. 00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:51.440 It's not enough to produce it to s to make some copies 00:55:51.520 --> 00:55:54.480 and then to make it available, you know, make review copies available 00:55:54.720 --> 00:55:55.840 word of mouth. 00:55:55.840 --> 00:55:59.120 They have to advertise it because if that doesn't make money, I 00:55:59.120 --> 00:56:02.080 don't know what sort of accountability there is because the accountability again 00:56:02.160 --> 00:56:03.520 is all secret. 00:56:03.520 --> 00:56:06.560 But they have to spend over ten percent of their revenue on 00:56:06.560 --> 00:56:09.280 advertising to make sure that the stuff sells. 00:56:09.280 --> 00:56:12.000 Now that's not a whole lot of money for a for a 00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:16.800 business to spend on advertising, but consider the fact that everything that 00:56:16.800 --> 00:56:21.120 they are producing can be reproduced for free. 00:56:21.120 --> 00:56:25.200 In other in other words, once CPH makes a book, whether it's 00:56:25.200 --> 00:56:28.560 one of the archbooks or it's one of these books that's produced 00:56:28.560 --> 00:56:32.000 by the twenty-five-year-old girls they have on staff, or whether it's one 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:35.360 of the scholarly works that's produced by the the professors at our 00:56:35.520 --> 00:56:39.840 seminaries on books of the Bible and the the Concordia Commentary series 00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:41.920 by and large is exceptionally good. 00:56:42.320 --> 00:56:46.720 it's really a seminal collection that for the first time that I'm 00:56:46.720 --> 00:56:50.160 aware of, actual confessional Lutherans are doing this in English. 00:56:50.160 --> 00:56:52.000 Uh do you know of any others, Corey? 00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:52.480 I don't. 00:56:52.480 --> 00:56:52.800 I don't 00:56:52.720 --> 00:56:53.120 think I've 00:56:53.120 --> 00:56:53.920 seen any others. 00:56:54.320 --> 00:56:56.160 Nothing else comes to mind, no. 00:56:56.160 --> 00:56:59.280 Yeah. Like it's basically the first time in English the Lutherans are 00:56:59.280 --> 00:57:03.200 doing a systematic approach to the entire Bible book by book. 00:57:03.200 --> 00:57:07.520 And so there's there's low borrow content, there's high brow content. 00:57:07.520 --> 00:57:09.120 That stuff is scholarly. 00:57:09.120 --> 00:57:10.240 Those books are expensive. 00:57:10.240 --> 00:57:12.880 I think they run like fifty five, maybe sixty bucks a copy 00:57:12.960 --> 00:57:14.480 if you don't pre-order. 00:57:14.480 --> 00:57:15.680 Um and that's for 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:17.360 not cheap. 00:57:17.600 --> 00:57:22.400 Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that that's not cheap for a scholarly work. 00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:26.880 Maybe it's worth it in the the Keynesian sense, uh in that 00:57:26.880 --> 00:57:30.000 realm, but think about this. 00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:35.120 Just hypothetically, if instead of doing what CPH is doing today, if 00:57:35.120 --> 00:57:40.240 they took the same approach to funding upfront the production of the 00:57:40.240 --> 00:57:44.640 Concordia commentary series, which is I I think it's over halfway done, 00:57:44.640 --> 00:57:45.040 I believe. 00:57:45.040 --> 00:57:46.560 They produce quite a few of 'em. 00:57:46.560 --> 00:57:48.000 They come out four times a year. 00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:51.440 They're about four volumes a year released. 00:57:51.440 --> 00:57:53.440 This is the first time think about this. 00:57:53.440 --> 00:57:56.080 This is the first time in English that sound Lutheran doctrine and 00:57:56.080 --> 00:57:59.360 theory has been exposited for an entire book of the Bible in 00:57:59.360 --> 00:58:00.880 a scholarly fashion. 00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:02.960 Now, the LCMS is tiny. 00:58:02.960 --> 00:58:07.280 We're at one point eight million souls and shrinking every year year. 00:58:07.280 --> 00:58:11.360 Whether or not that you know whether or not that continues a 00:58:11.360 --> 00:58:12.560 subject for another day. 00:58:12.560 --> 00:58:14.080 But we're not big. 00:58:14.080 --> 00:58:19.120 But there are hundreds and hundreds of million Christians who speak English 00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:22.880 who might potentially be interested in that content. 00:58:22.880 --> 00:58:26.480 Now again, the the com the commentaries in particular are scholarly works. 00:58:26.720 --> 00:58:29.280 you need to be fluent in Greek and Hebrew in order to 00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:31.360 really fully engage in the content. 00:58:31.360 --> 00:58:33.200 But But that's only part of the content. 00:58:33.200 --> 00:58:35.840 The commentary portions generally you can get by like I can get 00:58:35.840 --> 00:58:40.320 by with the commentary portions, the the where they're going through and 00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:43.280 just sort of discussing the text, even though I don't know how 00:58:43.280 --> 00:58:46.160 to I can m kind of middlingly read read Greek a little 00:58:46.160 --> 00:58:48.160 bit phonetically, but that's it. 00:58:48.160 --> 00:58:50.080 I still get a lot of value out of it. 00:58:50.080 --> 00:58:54.240 Now if I were a pastor in another denomination who was looking 00:58:54.240 --> 00:58:58.560 for sound doctrine, Protestant doctrine, just looking for, you know, just what 00:58:58.560 --> 00:58:59.600 does anyone say? 00:58:59.600 --> 00:59:03.520 You know, it's typical to go looking for commentaries on various texts. 00:59:03.520 --> 00:59:07.280 If you're a reformed pastor or a Baptist pastor who can actually 00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:11.360 read and you go looking for a commentary series, wouldn't it be 00:59:11.360 --> 00:59:11.760 incredible 00:59:12.640 --> 00:59:16.240 if the Concordia commentary was freely available online? 00:59:16.240 --> 00:59:19.040 If you just download the PDF of that, and there it is, 00:59:19.040 --> 00:59:20.960 you have it, it costs you nothing. 00:59:20.960 --> 00:59:24.240 What would that do to all those pastors who are going and 00:59:24.240 --> 00:59:29.120 looking for that content worldwide if they were able to access what 00:59:29.120 --> 00:59:32.640 we have locked up behind an incredibly expensive paywall? 00:59:32.640 --> 00:59:34.880 No one's ever gonna do that. 00:59:34.880 --> 00:59:40.160 No one's ever gonna go looking for that unless they already have 00:59:40.160 --> 00:59:42.640 a very specific reason, which is virtually no one because most people 00:59:42.640 --> 00:59:44.640 don't even know Lutherans exist. 00:59:44.640 --> 00:59:49.680 So rather than spending 2.2 million on marketing, if we gave stuff 00:59:49.680 --> 00:59:52.400 away for free, what would happen? 00:59:52.400 --> 00:59:53.760 Pastors would find it. 00:59:53.760 --> 00:59:56.240 They would start telling each other about that stuff. 00:59:56.240 --> 01:00:00.160 Laymen who were astute, who were interested in engaging, would find it. 01:00:00.160 --> 01:00:00.800 And you know what? 01:00:01.040 --> 01:00:04.480 if there were half a million reformed laymen, probably reformed I say 01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:07.840 that because they're probably the best readers in the in Christendom r 01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:10.800 now. They love theological works. 01:00:10.800 --> 01:00:12.880 If they were to find this stuff and they say, oh, well, 01:00:12.880 --> 01:00:15.440 there's this stuff in Greek and Hebrew I can't read, read, some 01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:18.320 of them might be tempted to go learn Greek and Hebrew just 01:00:18.320 --> 01:00:20.480 so they could better understand the commentary. 01:00:20.480 --> 01:00:26.640 But meanwhile, they're having scripture exposited by faithful Lutherans who are doing 01:00:26.640 --> 01:00:29.280 it in a Lutheran way, which if you're Lutheran, you believe is 01:00:29.280 --> 01:00:34.000 a good thing, to to bring our understanding of scripture book by 01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:37.520 book, verse by verse, is a incredibly valuable thing. 01:00:37.520 --> 01:00:40.960 It's worth far more to us to us as a church that's 01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:45.520 shrinking and dying, to spread our word to people who've never heard 01:00:45.520 --> 01:00:47.680 of us by giving that stuff away. 01:00:47.680 --> 01:00:50.080 And yet would it never in a million years would it enter 01:00:50.080 --> 01:00:54.640 in anyone's mind at CPH to put those PDFs online Or to 01:00:54.640 --> 01:00:57.680 make the logos available logos available versions available for the same. 01:00:57.760 --> 01:01:00.560 Just going to say they do have an electronic version, and it's 01:01:00.560 --> 01:01:05.280 only $2,236 for 43 volumes. 01:01:05.440 --> 01:01:09.600 Yes. And someone asked them about the c why the digital version. 01:01:10.240 --> 01:01:14.000 Yes. And someone actually asked them why the electronic version cost the 01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:17.440 same as the printed version, even though there's no marginal cost. 01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:19.760 And the response was that it takes a lot more work to 01:01:20.160 --> 01:01:23.040 format it for logos, which is true because you have so many 01:01:23.040 --> 01:01:24.320 cross-references and things. 01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:25.200 So there's a lot of additional. 01:01:25.200 --> 01:01:26.640 It takes a long time initially, yes. 01:01:27.280 --> 01:01:28.720 It takes a lot of additional work. 01:01:28.720 --> 01:01:30.720 But again, that's prototyping work. 01:01:30.720 --> 01:01:31.920 That's one off work. 01:01:32.240 --> 01:01:35.440 You do that once and you don't have to do it again. 01:01:35.440 --> 01:01:37.120 So that's a sunk cost. 01:01:37.120 --> 01:01:41.600 And the mind of the CPH executive is I must recoup my 01:01:41.600 --> 01:01:42.480 sunk costs. 01:01:42.480 --> 01:01:43.840 I must make that money back. 01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:45.120 I cannot lose money on this. 01:01:45.120 --> 01:01:46.080 What will I do? 01:01:46.080 --> 01:01:49.360 I will charge a high price to ensure that over the years 01:01:49.440 --> 01:01:52.960 that money will trickle back in and maybe eventually this project will 01:01:52.960 --> 01:01:53.760 break even. 01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:58.400 How about, hypothetically, we get rid of that 10% and marketing budget. 01:01:58.400 --> 01:01:59.840 Don't market anything. 01:01:59.840 --> 01:02:04.400 Give everything away for free under one of these licenses where CPH 01:02:04.400 --> 01:02:06.880 should be credited, you know, including with the URL. 01:02:06.880 --> 01:02:10.240 So you can find Concordia Publishing House, you can find the LCMS 01:02:10.320 --> 01:02:12.800 to find To find the people who produce the content. 01:02:12.800 --> 01:02:15.360 And then you can use one of the license restrictions that says, 01:02:15.360 --> 01:02:17.280 you know what, if you're going to modify this, you need to 01:02:17.280 --> 01:02:18.560 indicate that you modified it. 01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:19.920 You need to say what you modified. 01:02:19.920 --> 01:02:22.640 If you want to change what we say, don't attribute it to 01:02:22.640 --> 01:02:23.920 us. That's reasonable. 01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:25.840 You don't have to pay us a dime. 01:02:25.840 --> 01:02:27.120 What would happen? 01:02:27.120 --> 01:02:31.280 That two million dollars that you freed up could be spent directly 01:02:31.280 --> 01:02:33.360 on producing more commentaries. 01:02:33.680 --> 01:02:37.760 the men who were producing that stuff could be remunerated up front, 01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:39.680 far better than they're being paid incidentally. 01:02:39.680 --> 01:02:41.280 They're not being paid much for this. 01:02:41.280 --> 01:02:43.120 Even the ones who are taking if they have to take a 01:02:43.120 --> 01:02:46.000 sabbatical, which most of them do to do it, someone else is 01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:47.360 funding the sabbatical. 01:02:47.360 --> 01:02:50.400 They're not making it from what CPH is paying them. 01:02:50.400 --> 01:02:54.240 So it's already the case that these books are not profitable. 01:02:54.240 --> 01:02:58.000 In addition, they're unprofitable and they're paywalled. 01:02:58.000 --> 01:02:59.760 So no one ever reads them. 01:02:59.760 --> 01:03:02.640 E even even most of our own pastors don't read them because 01:03:02.640 --> 01:03:04.080 they can't afford them. 01:03:04.080 --> 01:03:07.360 And think especially about the guys in seminary. 01:03:07.360 --> 01:03:10.960 Imagine you're a poor seminary student, your first, second, you know, you're 01:03:10.960 --> 01:03:13.040 maybe fourth year after your vicarage. 01:03:13.040 --> 01:03:16.000 You really want to have access to this butt stuff because, you 01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:21.680 know, Luther's works, Chemis's works, the CPH, the commentary series, those should 01:03:21.680 --> 01:03:24.800 be the crown jewels of Lutheranism, and yet you have to spend 01:03:24.800 --> 01:03:27.040 ten grand to get a hold of 'em. 01:03:27.040 --> 01:03:28.960 No one's going to be able to do that. 01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:31.120 There's nothing except for evil 01:03:32.080 --> 01:03:35.520 that is preventing us from making that stuff available for free. 01:03:35.520 --> 01:03:39.280 Now, someone may argue, well, some of those trend translations are copyright 01:03:39.360 --> 01:03:45.040 encumbered. Okay, spend some of that 2.2 million and pay somebody yeah, 01:03:45.040 --> 01:03:46.000 retranslate them. 01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:48.560 There are probably some translation things that need to be fixed, 'cause 01:03:48.560 --> 01:03:51.920 some of the translations were done by Elka for the LW. 01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:55.120 So if we clean that up and we produce ourselves, make it 01:03:55.120 --> 01:03:57.520 available forever in English. 01:03:57.840 --> 01:04:01.360 As long as English is spoken anywhere in the universe, you can 01:04:01.360 --> 01:04:03.600 read and download and use this for free. 01:04:03.600 --> 01:04:05.600 And then sell physical copies. 01:04:05.600 --> 01:04:07.840 You can sell physical copies and they're they're nicely done. 01:04:07.840 --> 01:04:08.800 They're pretty nicely bound. 01:04:08.800 --> 01:04:10.800 The paper's not bad. 01:04:10.800 --> 01:04:12.240 You could even have nicer ones. 01:04:12.240 --> 01:04:14.480 We have a number of friends who've said I wish that I 01:04:14.480 --> 01:04:17.360 could get you know a two hundred dollar version of the book 01:04:17.360 --> 01:04:19.920 of Conquer that was nearly as nice as what I can get 01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:21.040 for one of the Bibles. 01:04:21.360 --> 01:04:22.080 You can't. 01:04:22.080 --> 01:04:24.960 There's one that comes from CPH that's it's middling. 01:04:24.960 --> 01:04:25.760 It costs more. 01:04:25.760 --> 01:04:27.520 It's not worth what it what it costs. 01:04:27.520 --> 01:04:30.480 And it's not nearly as nice as it should be for the 01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:33.200 contents. You can use those things. 01:04:33.200 --> 01:04:39.120 And I think that the the value of making financial transparency is 01:04:39.120 --> 01:04:42.480 that you could say, look, this copy of the book of Concord 01:04:42.640 --> 01:04:47.280 is $200, and there's a 25% profit margin on this. 01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:52.000 Part of that 25% is going to go back into subsidizing the 01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:55.200 cost of the general book of Concord that's freely that's available as 01:04:55.200 --> 01:04:57.440 a printed bound copy. 01:04:57.440 --> 01:05:00.240 So that those who want a physical copy can get it for 01:05:00.240 --> 01:05:02.720 less. Because that should be our desire, to have that in the 01:05:02.720 --> 01:05:04.320 hands of everybody on the planet. 01:05:04.320 --> 01:05:07.280 And the fact that we don't even think about what can we 01:05:07.280 --> 01:05:10.960 do to make our doctrine available to more people who again who've 01:05:11.040 --> 01:05:12.960 never heard of Lutherans, they don't care. 01:05:12.960 --> 01:05:15.520 But if they found something for free that was on the you 01:05:15.520 --> 01:05:18.640 know, the book of Luke or something, someone would read it and 01:05:18.640 --> 01:05:21.840 he would get excited because the content in there is good and 01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:22.960 he would tell his friends. 01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:25.520 And then you know what, you don't need a marketing budget. 01:05:25.520 --> 01:05:30.560 And I want to particularly mention the commercial aspect. 01:05:30.560 --> 01:05:33.440 We should make it available so that other people can print it 01:05:33.440 --> 01:05:34.480 commercially too. 01:05:34.480 --> 01:05:35.600 Because you know what? 01:05:35.600 --> 01:05:38.960 One of the other publishers would do just that. 01:05:38.960 --> 01:05:41.440 And today we think we think of that as oh they're gonna 01:05:41.440 --> 01:05:42.480 eat our lunch. 01:05:42.480 --> 01:05:46.960 No, let them spend their marketing money to spread Lutheran doctrine, to 01:05:46.960 --> 01:05:50.720 spread sound doctrine so they can be shared with people and printed 01:05:50.800 --> 01:05:53.440 material and it's gonna point back to the website where you can 01:05:53.440 --> 01:05:54.560 also find it for free. 01:05:54.560 --> 01:05:58.080 No one's gonna be tricked into buying the the book because they 01:05:58.080 --> 01:06:00.240 didn't know they could get the PDF for free. 01:06:00.240 --> 01:06:01.520 Digital is not great. 01:06:01.760 --> 01:06:03.520 Digital is useful for some things. 01:06:03.520 --> 01:06:07.680 Bound is very useful for many others and it's a mutually exclusive 01:06:07.680 --> 01:06:10.160 set. So a lot of people would want both. 01:06:10.160 --> 01:06:12.160 Digital is instantly searchable. 01:06:12.160 --> 01:06:14.560 Physical, you can have in your hands, you can highlight it, you 01:06:14.560 --> 01:06:16.800 can annotate it, you can do all sorts of things. 01:06:16.800 --> 01:06:20.480 If we just gave the stuff away and said if Zonderban or 01:06:20.480 --> 01:06:24.480 somebody else wants to publish this stuff and you know give us 01:06:24.480 --> 01:06:29.520 credit, keep it intact, and do the expensive part of reproducing the 01:06:29.520 --> 01:06:31.440 physical good, God bless them. 01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:37.440 May they serve sound doctrine by spreading this far and wide. 01:06:37.520 --> 01:06:43.120 One of the most egregious examples isn't actually the Concordia commentary, although 01:06:43.200 --> 01:06:44.240 yes it is. 01:06:44.240 --> 01:06:47.440 It's Luther's works. 01:06:47.440 --> 01:06:48.080 We have 01:06:49.200 --> 01:06:52.960 fifty-five well actually however many volumes it is now, sixty something volumes, 01:06:52.960 --> 01:06:55.760 translated in the American edition. 01:06:55.760 --> 01:06:59.200 Not one is freely available. 01:06:59.200 --> 01:07:03.920 They're also, what is it, forty-three dollars or something of volume. 01:07:03.920 --> 01:07:08.240 And these are works that are 500 years old. 01:07:08.240 --> 01:07:12.480 There's no reason, given that we have seminary professors and a number 01:07:12.480 --> 01:07:17.440 of other individuals in synod who are theologically trained, competent, and know 01:07:17.440 --> 01:07:20.560 the original languages, because of course if you're translating Luther, you have 01:07:20.560 --> 01:07:25.040 to at a minimum know Latin, Greek, and German, and hopefully also 01:07:25.040 --> 01:07:28.160 English the language into which you're translating. 01:07:28.160 --> 01:07:31.680 There's no reason we should not have all of these on a 01:07:31.680 --> 01:07:36.160 website, searchable, indexed, free for the world. 01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:40.640 And it wouldn't even be that expensive of an undertaking. 01:07:40.640 --> 01:07:44.720 This is something that could easily be done by a number of 01:07:44.720 --> 01:07:48.800 seminary professors having a sabbatical to translate a volume here and there. 01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:53.120 And the only reason it isn't done is because you can't theoretically 01:07:53.120 --> 01:07:54.560 monetize it as easily. 01:07:54.960 --> 01:07:57.600 The irony, of course, is that they probably would make more, as 01:07:57.600 --> 01:07:58.960 we pointed out earlier. 01:07:58.960 --> 01:08:02.880 German authors were making more off of their works than were English 01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:06.560 authors despite the English being protected by a copyright regime. 01:08:07.200 --> 01:08:10.960 Yep. A couple of the other interesting numbers I dug up with 01:08:10.960 --> 01:08:14.640 regard to uh CPH's financials from ten years ago. 01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:17.680 They have thirty-nine million dollars in investments. 01:08:17.680 --> 01:08:20.720 That's cash that they're sitting on so that they can make sure 01:08:20.720 --> 01:08:25.200 that they can continue to be financially independent. 01:08:25.680 --> 01:08:28.960 Is that stewardship or is that burying your money in the ground? 01:08:28.960 --> 01:08:32.560 And from that thirty-nine million, they're generating eight hundred thousand a year 01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:35.040 ten years ago in investment income. 01:08:35.040 --> 01:08:38.240 Now think about if you took eight hundred thousand a year and 01:08:38.240 --> 01:08:43.840 provided forty thousand dollars sabbaticals to it was 16 professors. 01:08:43.840 --> 01:08:48.640 Think about the amount of work that could be done by using 01:08:48.640 --> 01:08:51.760 the money that's already being produced today by their investments. 01:08:51.760 --> 01:08:54.720 That's just with the investment dividends effectively. 01:08:54.720 --> 01:08:57.520 What if we started chipping into that thirty nine million? 01:08:57.520 --> 01:08:58.880 What if we said, you know what? 01:08:58.880 --> 01:09:01.600 I trust in God to provide for me next year. 01:09:01.600 --> 01:09:05.120 I don't need to sit on thirty nine million dollars and prepare 01:09:05.120 --> 01:09:07.440 and hope that a rainy day won't come. 01:09:07.440 --> 01:09:09.920 I'm going to spend it now to spread the word of God. 01:09:09.920 --> 01:09:11.200 You don't have to spend it all at once. 01:09:11.200 --> 01:09:12.160 We're not saying that. 01:09:12.160 --> 01:09:15.760 We're saying that the problem of we need to charge sixty dollars 01:09:15.760 --> 01:09:18.560 for a commentary so that we can get our money back on 01:09:18.560 --> 01:09:20.800 the back end, is ludicrous. 01:09:20.800 --> 01:09:24.800 Pay the the scholars what it's worth up front for their time, 01:09:24.800 --> 01:09:28.960 for their expertise, and then make it available to the world, and 01:09:29.040 --> 01:09:31.600 the money will come back to you. 01:09:31.680 --> 01:09:34.720 I, you know, and it's it's not just the high-end stuff, it's 01:09:34.640 --> 01:09:38.240 stuff like the small catechism, which is probably the second most important 01:09:38.240 --> 01:09:40.000 book ever published. 01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:43.440 Period. the number of people who have been both brought to faith 01:09:43.520 --> 01:09:47.040 and had the faith explained to them clearly by the the small 01:09:47.040 --> 01:09:49.680 catechism, there's no way to compare it. 01:09:49.680 --> 01:09:53.280 It it's so important that in in third world countries, even the 01:09:53.280 --> 01:09:57.120 Roman Catholic priests prefer to use Luther's small catechism to their own 01:09:57.120 --> 01:10:00.720 catechism because it's more clearly written, it's more to the point, and 01:10:00.720 --> 01:10:03.520 it's it's basic fundamental Christian doctrine. 01:10:03.520 --> 01:10:07.120 It is a Lutheran take on things, but it's straight from the 01:10:07.120 --> 01:10:10.000 Bible and the citations there are scriptural citations. 01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:13.360 So why isn't that madeable available for free? 01:10:13.360 --> 01:10:17.680 I got a book in the mail a few months ago, completely 01:10:17.680 --> 01:10:18.400 out of the blue. 01:10:18.400 --> 01:10:19.600 I had no idea what was going on. 01:10:19.840 --> 01:10:23.120 It was literally a paperback book with just a sticker on the 01:10:23.120 --> 01:10:25.120 back, but it w it was in my mailbox. 01:10:25.120 --> 01:10:28.560 So I realized that what that meant was that the post office 01:10:28.560 --> 01:10:31.840 had been handled handed a big box of these so that they 01:10:31.840 --> 01:10:34.400 wouldn't get damaged 'cause it was in it was perfectly intact. 01:10:34.400 --> 01:10:38.880 And then the postal carrier went mailbox to mailbox and entire neighborhoods, 01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:40.400 sticking these books in. 01:10:40.400 --> 01:10:44.720 The book is title titled The Great Controversy, which I didn't recognize. 01:10:44.720 --> 01:10:47.680 There was no uh attribution anywhere on it who was from. 01:10:47.680 --> 01:10:50.480 I actually had to Google it to remember that I had heard 01:10:50.480 --> 01:10:52.320 of this before it was by Ellen White. 01:10:52.320 --> 01:10:56.000 This is the seventh day Adventist screed that kicked off their cult 01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:57.280 in the eighteen hundreds. 01:10:57.280 --> 01:11:00.800 Now if the seventh day adventists care so much about spreading their 01:11:00.800 --> 01:11:04.720 doctrine that they're literally just stuffing their book in people's Bible in 01:11:04.720 --> 01:11:07.200 in people's uh mailboxes. 01:11:07.200 --> 01:11:09.680 Why aren't we doing that with a small catechism? 01:11:09.680 --> 01:11:10.640 Because you know what? 01:11:11.040 --> 01:11:13.840 Like, I'm I don't know how many people are going to be 01:11:13.840 --> 01:11:14.720 interested in seeing this. 01:11:14.800 --> 01:11:16.880 It's got they have a brand new cover on it. 01:11:16.880 --> 01:11:18.320 It's got the Capitol building. 01:11:18.320 --> 01:11:21.280 They're trying to portray it in terms of politics to juice people's 01:11:21.280 --> 01:11:24.000 interest. They bury the lead that it's about a cult. 01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:25.360 What if we said, you know what? 01:11:25.360 --> 01:11:26.880 This is just Christian doctrine. 01:11:26.880 --> 01:11:28.400 Here's the small catechism. 01:11:28.400 --> 01:11:30.320 Maybe not mail it to everyone in the world, but you could 01:11:30.640 --> 01:11:33.040 there are lists that will tell you Christian households. 01:11:33.040 --> 01:11:34.400 That's easy to figure out. 01:11:34.400 --> 01:11:37.120 If we could targeted all of those with some of the thirty 01:11:37.200 --> 01:11:40.080 nine million, with you could do a cheap paperback like this too. 01:11:40.320 --> 01:11:42.960 The actual printing cost is probably four or five bucks if you 01:11:42.960 --> 01:11:45.040 did it in that sort of volume. 01:11:45.040 --> 01:11:49.520 Why do Lutherans care less about our doctrine than the seventh day 01:11:49.520 --> 01:11:51.200 Adventists care about their cult? 01:11:51.200 --> 01:11:52.480 That's a serious question. 01:11:52.480 --> 01:11:55.440 What are we doing with our money, with our resources that we're 01:11:55.360 --> 01:11:58.560 charging like eighteen bucks a pop for the small catechism with no 01:11:58.560 --> 01:12:00.000 discounts to anybody. 01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:05.040 Why are we doing that when pagans can do better with worse? 01:12:07.280 --> 01:12:07.520 It's 01:12:07.520 --> 01:12:10.880 worth noting also that the small catechism can actually also be printed 01:12:10.880 --> 01:12:16.960 as a pamphlet, which has a marginal cost of what, fifteen cents 01:12:17.120 --> 01:12:19.120 or something utterly ridiculous. 01:12:19.200 --> 01:12:21.520 Because of course that's originally what it was, it was originally a 01:12:21.520 --> 01:12:26.080 pamphlet. The whole purpose of the small catechism was that it was 01:12:26.400 --> 01:12:32.640 one small two easy to produce and cheap to produce, and three 01:12:32.880 --> 01:12:33.440 could be read 01:12:34.400 --> 01:12:37.840 and understood by the common man. 01:12:38.160 --> 01:12:42.400 And that's and now we make it impossible for the common man 01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:46.160 and it it really is almost impossible because how many people actually, 01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:49.760 come across the small catechism if they don't know about Lutherans, if 01:12:49.760 --> 01:12:53.840 they don't go specifically looking for that information. 01:12:53.840 --> 01:12:57.040 There are Christians in the United States who've never heard of it. 01:12:57.040 --> 01:12:58.960 Which is ridiculous. 01:12:59.520 --> 01:12:59.760 It's 01:12:59.760 --> 01:13:00.720 completely insane. 01:13:00.720 --> 01:13:01.280 And you're right. 01:13:01.280 --> 01:13:03.760 The if you if you look at the new catechism, the new 01:13:03.760 --> 01:13:06.880 one, the new c so called small catechism, is over four hundred 01:13:06.880 --> 01:13:07.840 pages long. 01:13:08.160 --> 01:13:12.480 the first part from from Luther himself is like forty one pages. 01:13:12.480 --> 01:13:15.040 So we could absolutely do small writers. 01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:18.320 Yeah. At minuscule cost. 01:13:18.320 --> 01:13:20.080 And put that in the hands of everyone. 01:13:20.080 --> 01:13:22.320 And then make the other versions available as well. 01:13:22.560 --> 01:13:23.120 you're absolutely right. 01:13:23.120 --> 01:13:24.400 I didn't even think about that. 01:13:24.400 --> 01:13:27.360 Like we could we could make that available and that's forty one 01:13:27.360 --> 01:13:29.120 pages with a lot of space. 01:13:29.120 --> 01:13:30.720 Like it's mostly wasted space. 01:13:30.720 --> 01:13:34.240 You could that that's probably like a twelve page pamphlet. 01:13:34.240 --> 01:13:34.560 Um 01:13:34.960 --> 01:13:35.120 I 01:13:35.120 --> 01:13:38.800 think it was originally uh either a a quattro or an octo 01:13:38.800 --> 01:13:41.040 pamphlet in the medieval printing. 01:13:41.040 --> 01:13:42.160 I think that's what it 01:13:42.160 --> 01:13:44.880 was. So we could literally fend an envelope. 01:13:45.200 --> 01:13:48.320 th you're talking out about a total production cost, a mailing cost, 01:13:48.320 --> 01:13:50.480 at scale of fifty or sixty cents. 01:13:50.480 --> 01:13:51.360 We could do that. 01:13:51.440 --> 01:13:54.400 And who cares if 90% of them end up in the trash? 01:13:54.400 --> 01:13:58.720 If ten percent of people read that and thought, wow, there's something 01:13:58.720 --> 01:14:00.000 here I've never heard before. 01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:02.240 Why doesn't my church talk like this? 01:14:02.240 --> 01:14:06.000 Do you think we would still be a shrinking denomination in ten 01:14:06.000 --> 01:14:08.960 years? These are the things that are going to change. 01:14:08.960 --> 01:14:12.160 There are other discussions for other days about things that are going 01:14:12.160 --> 01:14:15.440 wrong in our churches, but the fact that nobody's heard about us 01:14:15.440 --> 01:14:18.880 and that we won't freely give away our doctrine to anyone who's 01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:23.120 potentially interested, our chief among them, because they're a testimony to the 01:14:23.120 --> 01:14:26.000 fact that the synod is now a corporation. 01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:26.960 It's no longer a church. 01:14:26.960 --> 01:14:29.920 It's a corporation that exists for the purpose of 01:14:30.800 --> 01:14:32.320 preserving the corporation. 01:14:32.320 --> 01:14:36.640 When Matt Harrison talks about his tenure, he highlights the financial stability. 01:14:36.640 --> 01:14:39.760 When I was looking at the at the uh CPH financials and 01:14:39.760 --> 01:14:42.000 saw that there was uh thirty six and a half million or 01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:44.640 that thirty nine million was invested in security. 01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:45.680 So oh that's interesting. 01:14:45.680 --> 01:14:48.160 Figured, you know, fidelity or something. 01:14:48.160 --> 01:14:52.960 No, it's invested in the uh LCMS Foundation, which is one point 01:14:52.960 --> 01:14:56.800 one billion billion dollar hedge fund owned by the Missouri Synod, where 01:14:56.960 --> 01:15:01.600 five hundred of the other partner groups under the corporate umbrella are 01:15:01.600 --> 01:15:03.440 all stashing their money. 01:15:03.440 --> 01:15:07.360 Now it's a good thing to have savings in reserve. 01:15:07.360 --> 01:15:10.320 I'm not saying that that is erroneous per se. 01:15:10.320 --> 01:15:15.200 But when you're your purpose is to accumulate and not to deploy 01:15:15.200 --> 01:15:19.280 successfully for the sake of the gospel, what is it you're actually 01:15:19.280 --> 01:15:22.640 doing? Are you running a church or are you running a business? 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:25.520 And it's very clear based on the decisions that are being made 01:15:25.600 --> 01:15:28.800 in our church and I think in most other churches that they're 01:15:28.800 --> 01:15:31.520 all being run primarily as businesses. 01:15:31.520 --> 01:15:33.520 And you do what you can do if it's going to be 01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:36.880 affordable and if you can't make a business case for it, don't 01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:38.320 do it at all. 01:15:38.560 --> 01:15:41.600 Unless it comes to some sort of foreign missions where we're just 01:15:41.600 --> 01:15:45.280 pouring millions and millions of dollars into people with languages that have 01:15:45.360 --> 01:15:50.640 2,500 words, so it's literally impossible to translate theology into their language 01:15:50.800 --> 01:15:52.880 because there's no words for eighty percent of what you need to 01:15:52.880 --> 01:15:54.000 talk to 'em about. 01:15:54.000 --> 01:15:55.920 That we'll spend infinite money on. 01:15:55.920 --> 01:15:58.960 But English speaking people where we already have all of the material 01:15:59.040 --> 01:16:01.760 and all we have to do is put in an envelope, that 01:16:01.760 --> 01:16:02.640 will never happen. 01:16:02.640 --> 01:16:05.040 It will never happen with this group. 01:16:05.280 --> 01:16:08.560 Hopefully, a future group will take some of these ideas and say, 01:16:08.560 --> 01:16:09.360 you know what? 01:16:09.360 --> 01:16:13.600 Maybe we don't need to use a copyright regime and legal boundaries 01:16:13.760 --> 01:16:17.440 and legal penalties to prevent the spread of the gospel. 01:16:17.440 --> 01:16:20.000 Maybe we just give it away and let the Holy Spirit do 01:16:20.000 --> 01:16:20.560 his work. 01:16:20.560 --> 01:16:22.000 That's what he asked to do. 01:16:22.000 --> 01:16:23.760 Let's give it a shot. 01:16:23.920 --> 01:16:24.080 We 01:16:24.080 --> 01:16:28.320 don't even proselytize German speaking nations. 01:16:28.320 --> 01:16:32.240 And we wouldn't have to translate our materials to publish them for 01:16:32.480 --> 01:16:33.920 our brothers over in Germany. 01:16:33.920 --> 01:16:35.040 We don't even do that. 01:16:35.040 --> 01:16:37.920 So we we don't even have the art the excuse of there 01:16:37.920 --> 01:16:40.720 being a cost of translation for some of our failures. 01:16:41.360 --> 01:16:45.200 We're pouring millions of dollars into Africa and elsewhere, and meanwhile we 01:16:45.200 --> 01:16:48.560 have I think it's two missionaries in Germany. 01:16:48.560 --> 01:16:51.680 Yep. and we don't we don't have any materials available in German 01:16:52.240 --> 01:16:55.440 except for the Book of Concord, which is available on the website 01:16:55.440 --> 01:16:56.320 in German. 01:16:56.880 --> 01:16:57.040 And 01:16:57.040 --> 01:17:00.000 that's a crucial point that points directly to mine. 01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:05.440 In Germany and in England, the majority of the confessional Lutheran Lutheran 01:17:05.440 --> 01:17:09.040 outreach is not being done to the native populations. 01:17:09.040 --> 01:17:12.880 When they taught when the when the the Lutheran church, the E 01:17:13.920 --> 01:17:15.200 L C E, is that what it 01:17:15.200 --> 01:17:16.160 is? Um 01:17:16.560 --> 01:17:16.880 which one? 01:17:16.880 --> 01:17:18.480 Where the in Germany. 01:17:18.640 --> 01:17:19.200 In Germany. 01:17:19.200 --> 01:17:19.680 Selk. 01:17:20.240 --> 01:17:21.120 Selk, that's right. 01:17:21.520 --> 01:17:22.720 Yeah. Yeah. 01:17:23.200 --> 01:17:26.080 When they do outreach, when they talk about it, they talk about 01:17:26.080 --> 01:17:29.840 all the Africans and all the Muslims that they're ministering to. 01:17:30.320 --> 01:17:32.080 What is What is going on? 01:17:32.080 --> 01:17:36.240 Germany, where Lutheranism was invented, where Luther made up a brand new 01:17:36.240 --> 01:17:37.360 religion for Germans. 01:17:37.360 --> 01:17:38.480 That's what we're told. 01:17:38.480 --> 01:17:42.320 And yet no longer do even Germans hold to that made-up religion. 01:17:42.320 --> 01:17:47.120 Now we're teaching Africans who are coming to those countries for not 01:17:47.120 --> 01:17:48.240 good reasons. 01:17:48.240 --> 01:17:54.160 There's no outreach in either England or Germany to the native populations. 01:17:54.160 --> 01:17:57.840 And I don't think we can call ourselves Christian if that's how 01:17:57.840 --> 01:17:58.800 we're gonna behave. 01:17:58.800 --> 01:18:01.600 Yes, it's good to reach out to people wherever they are, but 01:18:01.600 --> 01:18:05.360 the fact that we are neglecting our neighbors and our brothers according 01:18:05.360 --> 01:18:09.360 to their flesh for the sake of aliens, just because they're aliens, 01:18:09.360 --> 01:18:11.600 and don't don't believe anything else. 01:18:11.600 --> 01:18:15.200 It is because they're aliens that these other people are seen as 01:18:15.200 --> 01:18:19.120 prime recipients of the so called gospel. 01:18:19.120 --> 01:18:19.280 Well 01:18:19.360 --> 01:18:22.800 you get good boy points for proselytizing to those who aren't like 01:18:22.800 --> 01:18:23.040 you. 01:18:23.600 --> 01:18:27.360 Yeah. You're not spreading the gospel if you have to step over 01:18:27.360 --> 01:18:29.280 your brother to get to another man. 01:18:29.280 --> 01:18:31.920 I don't care what you tell him, it's not in your heart 01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:33.840 if you will behave in such a way. 01:18:33.840 --> 01:18:35.200 And you're you're absolutely right. 01:18:35.200 --> 01:18:37.120 Like everything's in German. 01:18:37.120 --> 01:18:38.240 Why is that not available? 01:18:38.240 --> 01:18:39.840 None of that's copyrighted. 01:18:39.840 --> 01:18:43.360 Like, if we if we've typeseted like all the stuff from chemnets 01:18:43.360 --> 01:18:45.920 and others, make it available for free. 01:18:45.920 --> 01:18:47.520 Make it available for free. 01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:48.720 It's not ours to begin with. 01:18:48.800 --> 01:18:51.680 With the it's an inheritance, and the fact that And the printing 01:18:51.680 --> 01:18:52.880 houses exist. 01:18:52.880 --> 01:18:53.760 Just let them 01:18:53.760 --> 01:18:54.720 print it. 01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:59.440 Yeah. And again, if we if we own the copyright for something, 01:18:59.440 --> 01:19:01.040 gross, but whatever. 01:19:01.040 --> 01:19:03.600 If we have it, so that we can say anyone in the 01:19:03.600 --> 01:19:05.600 world can produce this free of charge. 01:19:05.600 --> 01:19:08.720 You can charge money to produce this theological work. 01:19:08.720 --> 01:19:10.400 Somebody's gonna jump on that. 01:19:10.400 --> 01:19:13.040 And when they start making a little bit of money, word will 01:19:13.040 --> 01:19:16.000 get around and that small world and others will jump on it 01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:18.720 too and try to make a nicer version or you know translate 01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:20.480 it into other languages. 01:19:20.480 --> 01:19:24.080 When you set something free and say this idea is not mine 01:19:24.080 --> 01:19:27.040 anymore's, this is yours, do what you want with it. 01:19:27.280 --> 01:19:29.040 You don't know what's gonna happen. 01:19:29.040 --> 01:19:31.280 But when you're talking about the word of God, it's going to 01:19:31.280 --> 01:19:32.480 be something good. 01:19:32.480 --> 01:19:35.360 And it shocks and appalls my conscience that 01:19:36.240 --> 01:19:37.840 we even have to say these things. 01:19:37.840 --> 01:19:40.000 And the fact that when we say them, people are going to 01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:42.400 hear them and they're just going to shout, well, what about? 01:19:42.400 --> 01:19:43.200 Well, what about? 01:19:43.200 --> 01:19:44.880 Well, what about? 01:19:44.880 --> 01:19:49.840 The whatabouts, even with the existing structures, can be addressed in a 01:19:49.840 --> 01:19:52.800 way that more than offset all the whatabouts. 01:19:52.800 --> 01:19:55.840 And I think that we're rapidly approaching the point where there's going 01:19:55.840 --> 01:19:58.640 to be a new denomination where we're gonna have to start from 01:19:58.640 --> 01:20:02.960 scratch and we're gonna have to retranslate this stuff because the LCMS 01:20:02.960 --> 01:20:05.280 corporation is gonna own the copyrights. 01:20:05.280 --> 01:20:06.320 And you know what? 01:20:06.320 --> 01:20:09.680 When that day comes, we're going to put translators to work to 01:20:09.680 --> 01:20:12.320 do all this stuff right for the last time because it's all 01:20:12.320 --> 01:20:15.120 going to be given away for free to everyone in the world. 01:20:15.120 --> 01:20:17.440 And if you think that that church, no matter how no matter 01:20:17.520 --> 01:20:20.400 how small it is, when it begins, if you don't think that 01:20:20.400 --> 01:20:24.880 that church is gonna grow like a like something that's never been 01:20:24.880 --> 01:20:28.240 seen since the days of the Pentecost, I think you're in for 01:20:28.240 --> 01:20:29.440 a real surprise. 01:20:29.440 --> 01:20:33.120 This is what Christians should be doing, they shouldn't be wasting time 01:20:33.440 --> 01:20:36.960 not spending their resources well as we are. 01:20:36.960 --> 01:20:40.320 We're doing things that have no fruit, and yet we continue to 01:20:40.320 --> 01:20:42.480 bear bad fruit or no fruit. 01:20:42.480 --> 01:20:45.200 We can t we refuse to shake the dust off our feet 01:20:45.200 --> 01:20:48.000 on our failed endeavors, and we refuse to try things that have 01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:49.840 never been tried before. 01:20:49.840 --> 01:20:54.400 Let's try doing something that's not only Christian, but on paper actually 01:20:54.400 --> 01:20:55.440 makes sense. 01:20:55.440 --> 01:20:57.120 How about that? 01:20:57.680 --> 01:21:00.640 One of the things that came to mind when I was looking 01:21:00.640 --> 01:21:06.160 at the issue of copyright in theology is that this is very 01:21:06.480 --> 01:21:10.800 much like indulgences in the Middle Ages. 01:21:10.800 --> 01:21:15.120 In one sense it's not as bad, because we are not saying 01:21:15.360 --> 01:21:19.760 and I we in this case being Christendom copywriting works, we are 01:21:19.760 --> 01:21:23.440 not saying that well, you earn forgiveness of sins if you pay 01:21:23.440 --> 01:21:24.480 the money. 01:21:24.480 --> 01:21:28.320 But in another sense it's actually worse because we're saying well you 01:21:28.320 --> 01:21:31.760 don't get the thing that tells you about the forgiveness of sins 01:21:31.760 --> 01:21:34.160 unless you pay the money. 01:21:34.160 --> 01:21:38.080 So copyright law in the realm of theology has really become sort 01:21:38.080 --> 01:21:40.160 of a modern indulgence. 01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:43.040 Pay money to get yes, ex yeah, exactly. 01:21:43.280 --> 01:21:45.520 the sale of church offices, yes. 01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:45.920 Yeah. The 01:21:46.080 --> 01:21:46.800 it it's it's 01:21:47.200 --> 01:21:49.920 Except we're not even we're not even really doing Simony right. 01:21:49.920 --> 01:21:53.600 We're doing it in in the most incompetent, terrible way possible. 01:21:53.680 --> 01:21:55.120 Yeah. and that's the thing. 01:21:55.120 --> 01:21:59.280 Like if you if you think about if if a Lutheran pastor 01:21:59.600 --> 01:22:02.240 said, you know what, if you want to come hear my sermon, 01:22:02.240 --> 01:22:04.480 that's going to be five dollars, forget the offering plate. 01:22:04.480 --> 01:22:06.560 You need to pay to come in the door. 01:22:06.560 --> 01:22:07.920 There's a cover charge. 01:22:07.920 --> 01:22:12.560 Yeah. Like it it would be stopped within one week. 01:22:12.560 --> 01:22:16.640 Even the laziest, most malcontent district president would put an end to 01:22:16.640 --> 01:22:18.880 that because it would be so scandalous. 01:22:18.880 --> 01:22:22.720 We wouldn't be charging for live streams of church services, which probably 01:22:22.720 --> 01:22:27.440 shouldn't exist anyway, but we so we don't charge to pray, we 01:22:27.440 --> 01:22:31.760 don't charge to preach, we don't charge for the sacraments. 01:22:31.760 --> 01:22:37.520 And yet because we inherited copyright law from the environment the enlightenment, 01:22:37.520 --> 01:22:40.720 we think that somehow it suddenly makes sense to charge for the 01:22:40.720 --> 01:22:44.000 Word of God and to charge for a s faithful exposition of 01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:45.120 the Word of God. 01:22:45.120 --> 01:22:47.040 It's all the same thing. 01:22:47.040 --> 01:22:51.440 Whether something is in a book or it's spoken or it's shared 01:22:51.440 --> 01:22:54.880 with you verbally, either in person or from a sermon or whatever 01:22:54.800 --> 01:22:58.480 Or whatever, it's all teaching or preaching. 01:22:58.480 --> 01:23:01.040 All of that should be made available for free. 01:23:01.040 --> 01:23:02.480 If it's theological. 01:23:02.480 --> 01:23:06.000 Again, the setting aside the rest of copyright is fine for this. 01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:08.480 If it's theological, it should all be made available. 01:23:08.480 --> 01:23:12.080 And if you wouldn't charge someone a cover charge to come into 01:23:12.080 --> 01:23:15.840 your parish and to hear you preach, why in the name of 01:23:15.840 --> 01:23:18.160 God would you have a cover charge for them to have a 01:23:18.160 --> 01:23:19.760 PDF of what you wrote? 01:23:19.760 --> 01:23:23.360 If it was worth you writing, why isn't it worth someone reading 01:23:23.360 --> 01:23:24.320 for free? 01:23:24.320 --> 01:23:25.120 And you know what? 01:23:25.120 --> 01:23:26.880 God bless you if you want to set up a tip jar, 01:23:26.880 --> 01:23:27.680 that's fine. 01:23:27.680 --> 01:23:29.760 Or if you want a Patreon, that's fine. 01:23:29.760 --> 01:23:33.360 We're not saying you don't get paid for things, but let the 01:23:33.360 --> 01:23:36.080 payments be offerings. 01:23:36.080 --> 01:23:40.720 Let us return to a Christian ethos where something which is valued 01:23:40.720 --> 01:23:44.960 is freely given and then a free gift is given in return. 01:23:44.960 --> 01:23:46.240 That is Christian. 01:23:46.240 --> 01:23:50.560 And we talked last week about usury about how the Christian mode 01:23:50.560 --> 01:23:53.760 of lending is you don't expect anything back. 01:23:53.760 --> 01:23:57.920 If I'll give you a thousand dollars and not expect to receive 01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:01.920 a thousand dollars back, how is it Christian suddenly for me to 01:24:01.920 --> 01:24:06.080 give you a Bible and expect to get fifty dollars back? 01:24:06.080 --> 01:24:08.560 That's exactly what CPH does. 01:24:08.560 --> 01:24:12.800 Now, obviously there's a cost to the production production of the Bible. 01:24:12.800 --> 01:24:14.960 There was a cost of the thousand dollars that I lent. 01:24:14.960 --> 01:24:17.600 Now CPH obviously wouldn't be giving away free books, and we're not 01:24:17.600 --> 01:24:20.240 suggesting on a large scale that they would do, not for the 01:24:20.240 --> 01:24:22.320 nice stuff, the nicely printed stuff. 01:24:22.320 --> 01:24:24.880 But let's start looking at things that we can give away for 01:24:24.880 --> 01:24:28.400 free, either in printed material or everything. 01:24:28.400 --> 01:24:32.960 Again, if you have a book that's printed, you have a PDF. 01:24:33.200 --> 01:24:35.680 If you have a Mac in particular, the print dialog makes this 01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:38.480 clear. You can either print to your printer or you can print 01:24:38.480 --> 01:24:39.680 to pre PDF. 01:24:39.680 --> 01:24:41.760 It's functionally the same thing. 01:24:41.920 --> 01:24:45.520 Yes, there are very minor layout differences perhaps if you're going to 01:24:45.520 --> 01:24:47.760 end in design to actually produce a book. 01:24:47.760 --> 01:24:48.960 It's irrelevant. 01:24:48.960 --> 01:24:51.520 If the work is done to produce a book, the work is 01:24:51.520 --> 01:24:54.400 already finished for a PDF that can be made available to know 01:24:54.480 --> 01:24:57.360 tonight on CPH's website for everything. 01:24:57.360 --> 01:24:58.880 And this is true of all of your churches. 01:24:58.880 --> 01:25:02.560 If you're in another church, whatever theological writings they've produced, even if 01:25:02.560 --> 01:25:05.040 we disagree with them, I think they should all be available to 01:25:05.360 --> 01:25:07.760 because I would like to compare and contrast, you know, what the 01:25:07.760 --> 01:25:11.920 Reformed, what Presbyterians, what Baptists write, to what we write. 01:25:11.920 --> 01:25:15.360 And where there are differences, let us speak frankly about those differences 01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:16.880 and hammer things out. 01:25:16.880 --> 01:25:19.360 That's what God wants us to do with theology. 01:25:19.360 --> 01:25:23.120 Put it all on the table and have frank discussions about where 01:25:23.200 --> 01:25:26.240 scripture leads and where scripture prohibits. 01:25:26.240 --> 01:25:29.280 This discussion is just kind of laying the groundwork for us to 01:25:29.280 --> 01:25:33.200 be able to have those other discussions, because right now everything's encumbered. 01:25:33.200 --> 01:25:36.320 You have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on theological works 01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:40.400 just to have a minimal library to begin to discuss those things. 01:25:40.400 --> 01:25:42.960 Give me the T PDFs and let me search. 01:25:42.960 --> 01:25:46.480 If you do that, we're 90% of the way to having frank 01:25:46.480 --> 01:25:49.840 conversations that at this point really don't even happen because we don't 01:25:49.760 --> 01:25:52.400 know what the other people believe. 01:25:52.800 --> 01:25:52.960 We 01:25:52.960 --> 01:25:56.160 didn't even touch on one of the major problems. 01:25:56.160 --> 01:26:01.120 There are so many theological works out there that are essentially abandoned, 01:26:01.120 --> 01:26:04.400 and they are abandoned in the sense they are no longer in 01:26:04.400 --> 01:26:08.560 print. Good luck finding a used copy that isn't literally falling apart 01:26:08.560 --> 01:26:11.920 or smells weird, I've found both. 01:26:11.920 --> 01:26:14.240 And the digital edition just doesn't exist. 01:26:14.240 --> 01:26:17.360 So you literally cannot get some of these works, so even if 01:26:17.360 --> 01:26:21.520 you wanted to spend the money to acquire them, there's no option. 01:26:21.520 --> 01:26:22.960 It does not exist. 01:26:22.960 --> 01:26:28.640 Why on earth are at least those works not made available publicly? 01:26:28.640 --> 01:26:31.920 Well, of course, because there's no money in it, we know why. 01:26:31.920 --> 01:26:34.880 But there are so many works that are just simply out of 01:26:35.280 --> 01:26:40.480 copyright. Gives anything before the nineteen almost thirties now, nineteen twenties, is 01:26:40.480 --> 01:26:42.560 going to be out of copyright. 01:26:42.560 --> 01:26:45.360 And so at least those materials should be available. 01:26:45.360 --> 01:26:48.320 And I actually have a question to pose specifically to CPH when 01:26:48.320 --> 01:26:52.400 someone as CPH is past this particular episode, which may very well 01:26:52.400 --> 01:26:59.440 happen. Why is the combination small and large catechism on the Kindle 01:26:59.760 --> 01:27:03.120 almost six dollars. 01:27:03.120 --> 01:27:04.720 Now I know there is a minimum. 01:27:04.720 --> 01:27:07.120 I know that you have to charge a dollar. 01:27:07.120 --> 01:27:12.720 You have to charge 99 cents because Amazon has minimum prices for 01:27:13.520 --> 01:27:16.800 based on the size of the file delivered, and I imagine this 01:27:16.800 --> 01:27:20.480 one fits into the smallest one which is under three megabytes. 01:27:20.480 --> 01:27:23.360 I don't see any reason that this should be above that size. 01:27:23.360 --> 01:27:26.320 And so ninety-nine cents is the minimum they could charge in order 01:27:26.320 --> 01:27:27.600 to distribute on Kindle. 01:27:27.600 --> 01:27:29.520 But why is it six dollars? 01:27:29.520 --> 01:27:32.720 Why are we charging more than the absolute minimum required by the 01:27:32.720 --> 01:27:36.720 platform? It's just it's egregious. 01:27:36.720 --> 01:27:39.040 Yep. Even if we had to pay Amazon to do it, how 01:27:39.040 --> 01:27:42.400 about we spend some of that thirty nine million dollars on that. 01:27:42.960 --> 01:27:43.120 If 01:27:43.120 --> 01:27:44.480 they'd let us yeah exactly. 01:27:44.480 --> 01:27:46.000 Distribute it for free. 01:27:46.000 --> 01:27:46.640 Yeah. Oh 01:27:46.720 --> 01:27:49.360 no, it's a dollar for someone to actually obtain the word of 01:27:49.360 --> 01:27:51.280 God in a way he can understand. 01:27:52.480 --> 01:27:56.560 If it is sound doctrine, if it is scriptural, everyone in the 01:27:56.560 --> 01:27:59.520 world should have access to it without limitation. 01:27:59.520 --> 01:28:03.360 I I think that's just table stakes to be a Christian. 01:28:03.360 --> 01:28:08.720 And again, there's so many things like usury, like head coverings, like 01:28:08.960 --> 01:28:12.080 girls publishing and leading in the church. 01:28:12.080 --> 01:28:17.280 These are things that became cultural issues because we as a church 01:28:17.520 --> 01:28:20.720 are so completely subsumed by the nat the 01:28:21.600 --> 01:28:25.600 the culture that we're in, we we believe it's still Christian and 01:28:25.600 --> 01:28:29.520 we believe it's still formed by Christian values when it's not. 01:28:29.760 --> 01:28:35.920 it hasn't been since before anyone was born living it was born. 01:28:35.920 --> 01:28:40.240 We assume that because we call ourselves Christians that whatever we're doing 01:28:40.240 --> 01:28:41.360 is Christian. 01:28:41.360 --> 01:28:43.280 That's not the case either. 01:28:43.280 --> 01:28:46.960 Start looking at scripture, perhaps with fresh eyes. 01:28:46.960 --> 01:28:49.840 Maybe look at scripture at all, because they're like things you know, 01:28:49.840 --> 01:28:52.000 we talked about the shaking off the dust. 01:28:52.000 --> 01:28:55.120 How that just vanish and no one ever talked about it again. 01:28:55.120 --> 01:28:59.040 These conversations need to be perhaps be had for the first time 01:28:59.280 --> 01:29:03.840 I I think really in history for because copyright is is a 01:29:03.840 --> 01:29:08.960 novelty and the fact that we're now encumbering translations through copyright makes 01:29:08.960 --> 01:29:11.440 this the first time in history with the advent of the internet 01:29:11.680 --> 01:29:15.600 that it's actually possible to have a marginal cost to reproduce something 01:29:15.600 --> 01:29:16.240 of zero. 01:29:16.240 --> 01:29:17.280 And again, that's vital. 01:29:17.280 --> 01:29:20.560 This is fundamentally about electronic distribution. 01:29:20.560 --> 01:29:24.640 If once you've done the work of producing the PDF or the 01:29:24.640 --> 01:29:29.680 ebook or the logos file, there's no more expense. 01:29:29.680 --> 01:29:34.720 The cost of downloading that, of transferring that, is effectively zero. 01:29:34.720 --> 01:29:35.040 So 01:29:36.000 --> 01:29:41.200 the only question remaining for Christians is how do we pay for 01:29:41.200 --> 01:29:43.840 that work up front? 01:29:43.840 --> 01:29:49.680 And our only answer has been exploiting copyright to have piecemeal charges 01:29:49.680 --> 01:29:52.080 every time someone accesses the work. 01:29:52.080 --> 01:29:53.680 There are other ways to do it. 01:29:53.680 --> 01:29:56.240 There are other ways that pagans are doing it today. 01:29:56.240 --> 01:29:59.760 Maybe we should learn from the pagans how to spread the gospel 01:29:59.920 --> 01:30:02.080 because we can't figure out how to do it as Christians. 01:30:02.080 --> 01:30:04.240 Not as well as we should. 01:30:04.240 --> 01:30:08.560 I want to see a church that is as enthusiastic about giving 01:30:08.560 --> 01:30:12.160 away her jewels as the Seventh day Adventists are and as all 01:30:12.160 --> 01:30:16.080 the atheists doing the TED Talks are, because they're evangelical. 01:30:16.080 --> 01:30:19.760 They are they have zeal for their beliefs, even though their beliefs 01:30:19.760 --> 01:30:21.600 are evil and they're going to go to hell. 01:30:21.600 --> 01:30:24.080 At least they demonstrate zeal for their beliefs. 01:30:24.080 --> 01:30:25.200 Where is our zeal? 01:30:25.200 --> 01:30:30.080 Where's our enthusiasm for giving these jewels away that could perhaps lead 01:30:30.080 --> 01:30:30.960 people to salvation 01:30:31.840 --> 01:30:35.520 or prevent them from falling into despair and falling away from a 01:30:35.520 --> 01:30:37.120 salvation that they already have. 01:30:37.120 --> 01:30:40.480 Maybe a book that comes to someone that would be produced by 01:30:40.480 --> 01:30:42.640 CPH would find them at just the right moment. 01:30:42.640 --> 01:30:45.200 If one of their friends could give them a PDF, they had 01:30:45.200 --> 01:30:47.760 the words that they needed for free. 01:30:47.920 --> 01:30:50.560 Might not occur to a friend who would never have read it 01:30:50.560 --> 01:30:53.360 if he hadn't given it for free, but because you can just 01:30:53.360 --> 01:30:56.640 pass it on and on and on and you're not stealing anything 01:30:56.800 --> 01:30:59.040 because the copies can be infinite. 01:30:59.040 --> 01:31:02.320 You could fill up every hard drive in the universe with small 01:31:02.320 --> 01:31:05.840 catechisms, and then you would have to make hard more hard drives, 01:31:05.840 --> 01:31:06.960 but no there no one has been 01:31:07.920 --> 01:31:12.720 eliminated by reducing the number of available small catechisms physically. 01:31:12.720 --> 01:31:14.240 There's no cost of goods. 01:31:14.240 --> 01:31:17.200 We need to exploit that and we need to be cogn cognizant 01:31:17.200 --> 01:31:22.240 of it and we need to use it to spread sound doctrine? 01:31:22.240 --> 01:31:22.720 Aaron Powell I 01:31:22.720 --> 01:31:26.320 think the bottom line when it comes to copyright is the two 01:31:26.320 --> 01:31:30.560 questions and then the nexus that I mentioned earlier. 01:31:30.560 --> 01:31:32.560 What is the purpose of copyright? 01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:35.200 And then of course you also have to think about the effect. 01:31:35.200 --> 01:31:37.440 What is the purpose of theology? 01:31:37.440 --> 01:31:39.440 And are these compatible? 01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:44.320 I think we have convincingly demonstrated the answer to the last is 01:31:44.320 --> 01:31:44.880 no.