Copyrights

While I'm here, I wanted to point out something else. It annoys me to no end that people will actually copyright their translations of the Bible. Or... maybe it's the publishers' doing, I don't know. But a lot of these Bibles will include notices about how you can't share too many verses from them; for anything more than (a certain portion of the text), you need to ask the publisher for permission. How could you possibly do that in good conscience? The Bible should be shared with as many people as possible. People should be able to share the entire thing without question.

It also annoys me that people will apparently charge money for others to use their hymns / sheet music in church services. That's just disgusting to me, putting a price on worship. I can understand it a bit more (a bit more) with bands who release their music on CDs or something, because those are original recordings. You can still cover the songs as long as you don't claim the songs to be yours (which would be dishonest/sinful anyway) - the copyright is on the recordings themselves. I still don't 100% agree with that, but at least it makes more sense. It'd even make more sense if these were just generic secular love songs that were insincerely written by professional songwriters, just getting popular recording artists to record their songs to get extra money, etc, but hymns are supposed to have a deeper, sincere meaning to them - my church should not have to pay a writer of hymns, songs worshiping God, to use their songs. If they don't want their songs used in church services, I can respect that. I'm an artist and while I honestly think a lot of "artists" get a little carried away with it, I can understand being picky about things you make and how they're used. But in that case, just flat-out ask people not to use them. Don't hold your emotions, your feelings, at ransom.

This stuff just bothers me.

God bless you all and guide you, according to His perfect will. In Jesus' name. Amen.