MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Hagee: Get My Videos Off YouTube!

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Wed, July 09, 2008
Viewed 113
(23) comments so far

Here’s a little more from the article:

“My guess is that videos [that] Hagee’s people think are the most damaging are the ones they targeted,” said Bruce Wilson, who first highlighted Hagee’s claim that the Holocaust was God’s means of hastening the apocalypse by driving the Jews to Palestine. “Clearly, the conference at the end of July and the fact that Lieberman is going to be there also played a role. That’s my guess. They certainly don’t want people to see the more controversial stuff.”

Public relations officials for John Hagee Ministries denied foul play. Noting that several mainstream video clips—including one from Hagee’s speech at AIPAC—were removed from YouTube as well, they also dismissed the notion that lawyers to the pastor were suppressing news or undermining free speech.

“Any material that was produced for John Hagee Ministries or Christian United for Israel was deemed to be a copyright infringement was taken down,” said Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman from the firm 5WPR. “Anything that showed John Hagee giving a sermon - because he films and markets those as well - were taken down because they were considered copyright infringements.”

You can read the whole article here...

What do you think? Should Hagee’s lawyers have made this request? Should a public figure’s words (especially a pastor’s) be taken down off of YouTube? What would be the motivation?

According to the Huffington Post, late last week, with no prior notification, lawyers for the controversial evangelist John Hagee had a series of videos concerning the pastor removed from YouTube. The clips spanned from the contentious to the mundane; some included footage lifted from sermons Hagee had already made public, others involved documentaries made by filmmakers inside Hagee's conventions. All told more than 120 videos were taken down in the abrupt sweep.

The timing was, perhaps, more peculiar than the move itself. Clips that had been online for well over a year were now being subjected to "third-party" copyright infringement claims. And while Hagee had not been in the mainstream press since he and Sen. John McCain ended their official relationship a month prior, Hagee's Christians United for Israel annual summit is just days away, and at least one prominent McCain backer (Sen. Joseph Lieberman) is set to be in attendance.

Comments

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CS on Wed, July 09, 2008

Peter:

“We need a high-profile lawsuit at some point, because in many people’s opinions (including mine) YouTube does NOT constitute “fair use”… That’s my only real issue with it.”

That’s the catch; the likelihood of this ever happening is quite low. If someone uses a lawyer and says, “copyright infringement” to YouTube, they usually pull the video, and the story ends. If someone on the other side find their video yanked, even though it may have been in fair use domain, those people typically do not have armies of lawyers at their commands. Also, YouTube can cite their ubiquitous Terms of Service agreement as a shield. Or, in either case, if things went above and beyond, it would get settled in arbitration. It never gets up to the point of a high-profile legal case.

I believe that there are many cases of fair use videos being yanked from YouTube simply because someone said something they regretted on video, and then didn’t like it being disseminated. As was cited earlier, Rick Warren’s Syria situation was a good example of this.

And, yes, there are plenty of cases of copyright infringement, such as people putting up full music videos or episodes of TV shows with no other intention of doing so for informational or educational purposes. I agree with that, too.

—

CS
Anthony Leroy Trask on Wed, July 09, 2008

This is the same thing happening with Keneth Copeland now: hiding parts of their ministry in the name of the legal system. We need to be open, honest, and authentic about everything we do so we can live in the light as He is in the light. Some ministries need to learn a lesson from the likes of Craig Groeschel who gives everything away for free.
Al on Wed, July 09, 2008

You know every “pastor” has the right to control their message. I believe if they don’t have a reason that I might agree with to control the content of their messages and how they get out. They are accountable to God alone not me or you.
Jim in NJ on Thu, July 10, 2008

Al -

I have to disagree. Pastors are paid a salary by their churches. Part of their job is preaching on Sunday. If that content is recorded either on audio or video, should the distribution rights belong to the pastor or the church? I imagine that is a gray area in many churches. I can understand books being the property rights of the author. I am more uneasy about the distribution rights of sermons. Isn’t the purpose of a sermon be to reach as many people as possible for the gospel rather than make money for either the church or the pastor?

By the way, DanielR, have you got a scoop on RW’s new book, “The Illuminati-Led Church”?
Al on Thu, July 10, 2008

Jim,

If we believe that God does in fact speak to the hearts of our ministers to speak the heart of God in a specific season to the church and we trust our ministers in that endeavor; then why don’t we trust them in regards to when those messages are disseminated?

As a minister some of my sermons were directed to the audience alone to whom I was speaking. Some of those messages were crafted to fit a specific situation unique to that moment. Someone not privy to the “context” of the situation could interpret the content in a way it was never intended. Now, to be sure most messages were and are directed to all, yet some are not. Shouldn’t we trust our ministers as to what is appropriate to disseminate and what is not?

The issue here is retate to the “intellectual rights” of the minister. The church only has rights as to the content created to promote the church, i.e. informational booklets, doctrinal treaties, denominational instruction etc. The “messages” of the minister are his creation as much as any book or article he writes as the voice of the “teacher/evangelist/pastor.”

There is the issue of “copy write” here as much as there is with those who write lyrics for songs. Does the “church” have the write to disseminate the lyrics the music minister has created without his permission?

Just something to think about.

Blessings,

Al
Jim in NJ on Fri, July 11, 2008

Al -

You raise some interesting points that I, as a non-pastor, wouldn’t think about. I think that the issue of intellectual property is probably best left between the individual church and pastor or church and music minister. It is fair to point out that in private industry, an employee’s intellectual property such as inventions often are considered the property of the company because they felt that they paid for the time the employee spent on creating the invention. If the church is paying the pastor and or the music minister for the time they spend creating their sermons or music, shouldn’t the church have some control over it? I guess I am somewhat sensitive about some of the millionaire celebrity preachers who are so visible. Their excesses bring public ridicule on the body of Christ. I understand that a particular sermon might have been directed at a particular audience and therefore subject to misinterpretation in another venue, but many, if not most, churches distribute tape or CD copies of sermons as a routine outreach to those not there to hear it live. What is next, paying a pastor a royalty on every tape or CD distributed? Not an easy subject to nail down.
Peter Hamm on Fri, July 11, 2008

“If the church is paying the pastor and or the music minister for the time they spend creating their sermons or music, shouldn’t the church have some control over it? “

Depends on what kind of agreement the church and individual have. We have followed the lead of other churches in the area of music, for instance, in making sure that writing songs is NOT part of my job description. That way, the church doesn’t own what I create.

On the other hand, I’m about to release a CD of my own music, and I’m making sure that as we sell them, my church is compensated (they will resell my CD at a “profit” - but all the financial risk of making it is/was mine) because without this exposure to people that I have in my job, I’d have no “built-in” audience.

Preaching may be somewhat similar. Pastors and teachers should check carefully how their job descriptions are worded, and perhaps an intellectual property agreement is in order. I’ll be a lot of these “big name” guys have some kind of agreement in place.
Jim in NJ on Fri, July 11, 2008

Thanks for the insight, Peter. I guess I see most Music Ministers as leading worship rather than writing music. So I could see where any compositions would be the property of the composer. I agree that, for sermons, it would be best up front for the church and the pastor to come to an agreement that is equally satisfactory (or equally unsatisfactory) to both parties.

My job is purchasing and I’ve worked on a lot of contracts. One thing I learned early in my career was that a contract is where both parties discuss and agree on as many critical points as possible up front. It saves a lot of time, misery, and money later on. I commend you for sharing any proceeds with the church after the costs are covered.

My thanks to both you and Al for the discussion. I’ve learned something from this.