You have already lost control (of your content on the web)

In a recent conversation with staff members of a well-known ministry organization, they mentioned that someone had illegally translated one of their own copyrighted books into Arabic. The translation was of poor quality, doctrinally distorted, and even included quotes from the Koran. They then asked how we are preventing this kind of thing from happening with the resources on Door43.

This is a very good question and one that we are confident we have solved for content that is on the Door43 website (see the first of the “Frequently Asked Questions” for the solution). But note the significance of the situation that was described: their book was a copyrighted resource. The assumption by many is that keeping “all rights reserved” on a discipleship resource prevents bad things from happening to it. This is just not the case. There is no way to ensure that, in every language and part of the world, the content is not being misused.

If a discipleship resource is available on the web (which is a good thing), there is no way to prevent people from downloading it, corrupting it and distributing it, even if it is under copyright. This results in a situation where people who violate copyright restrictions (aka “pirates”) are not hindered at all, and only the “good guys” (Christians who need the resources in their own languages) are prevented from using the resources effectively. This is the motivation for the Door43 project, where all discipleship resources are free of charge and released under an open license, giving anyone, anywhere the legal freedom to use the resources in any way, for any ministry purpose.

*Photo credit: [opte](http://www.opte.org/maps/)*