This is a true story, taking place at the time of writing. A missionary is working with a local church leader from a language group in another country. They are designing a storytelling approach to teach the Word of God to their people in their own language. Thankfully, the Word of God has been translated into their language, but there is a problem. The Bible translation is the copyright of the publishing company and so any derivative works — including an audio version of the Bible stories — are not allowed.

This is a problem because the people with whom the missionary and local church leader are working are an oral culture and very few people know how to read in their (or any other) language. So the printed Bible, an invaluable and irreplaceable resource, is of very limited use to them — they need an audio version and could start recording the stories today if they were legally allowed to.

So what is the missionary to do?

• He works with a small organization that does not have a legal department and so cannot even begin the process of trying to gain legal permission to create the needed audio Bible stories.
• Even if they did have a legal department to do the work, it would take many months or even years and considerable financial resources to sort out the licensing terms between the two organizations, if they ever could come to an agreement.
• Even if the two organizations in this example could come to a legal licensing agreement, what if another missionary from another organization wants to create an additional resource (e.g. a Bible study guide) based on the original translation and incorporating large amounts of the text. The process would start all over again for each subsequent organization wanting to create resources to minister to the people in this language group.
• Should they wait for a ministry organization that specializes in vernacular media and audio recordings to sort out the legal arrangements and do the work for them? The language group needing the resources is small and it might be months or even years before it's their turn.
• While this is going on, what if the local church leader realizes that the Bible translation is difficult to understand and wants to revise it, using better grammar and updated vocabulary? Because of copyright restrictions, he is not legally permitted to make a revision of the Word of God in his own language and would need to start from scratch, requiring years of intensive labor.

Situations like this are painful to observe and are the norm, not the exception to the norm. A people group with thousands of lost souls cannot be reached with the discipleship resources that would be most effective for their salvation, not because there are no discipleship resources in their language, but because existing resources cannot be legally re-purposed and re-used to create effective resources.

One thing needs to be made clear: the ministry that holds the copyright almost certainly does not want ministry to be limited in any way and they are not being criticized. What this situation illustrates is the reality of what copyright law has become and how it can inadvertently stifle ministry through potential legal consequences. What is desperately needed is a way for copyright holders to release copyright restrictions of discipleship resources so that ministry can go forward. And the good news is that there is a way.

A license for ministry

Let's consider the above situation but change one small factor in the equation: the ministry that holds the copyright on the Bible translation in the local language has released the translation under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. The license pre-clears anyone to use, distribute and re-mix (create new discipleship resources from the original) as long as they

1. Attribute the original work (the Bible translation) to the original creator, and
2. Release whatever new resources they create from that work under the same license.

Here's how the situation could unfold:

• The missionary and local church leader decide they need to create audio versions of the Bible for free distribution.
• They start the same day making recordings of the church leader reading the stories of the Bible in his own language.
• They freely distribute the audio files on multimedia players and mobile phones that same day. The files are shared between people and taken to many other villages. Ministry goes forward rapidly.
• They post the audio files on a website where other ministries can use them (e.g. http://door43.org) and they are downloaded by speakers of that language living in other parts of the world. The recordings are released under the same license and the source of the original work (the text translation of the Bible in that language) is attributed with a link to the website of the Bible translation organization's website.
• The local church leader starts right in revising the Bible translation in his language and releases it online in the same way as the audio recordings.
• The missionary from the other organization is also able to move forward in partnership and creates a Bible study guide in the language.

This scenario is a very good illustration of the vision of Distant Shores Media and the goal of the Door43 project. Our purpose is to see the global church equipped with open, unrestricted discipleship tools that they can use in whatever way they need, so that ministry can go forward without hindrance.

Photo: benjamin.krause