Sam,

I missed that news report… do you have a link?

Thanks,

Todd

if it were me on there it would be eeeewwwwtube.

Joe,

I agree with Hagee for perhaps different reasons that he has issue with these videos. It’s a copyright issue. People who post stuff on Youtube generally do not own the copyright to do so. It’s a violation of copyright law. I’d like to have some control over my creative output and how it gets to people. (For instance, let’s say I perform a concert and my performance is really bad one night and that’s the video that ends up on YouTube?)

Hagee might indeed have bad reasons for demanding this stuff be removed, but his legal right is, imho, unquestionable.

Unholy alliance between politics and religion? I might agree with you on that, but the copyright issue stands. (I guess it’s two separate semi-unrelated issues)

Peter:

Delving into the legality of this, much of the utilization of videos like those of Hagee is in the form of education, informational, and review purposes that fall under “Fair Use” portions of the United States copyright laws.  As long as the clips are of “reasonable” length and the intent is not to profit from them, but to do news fuctions in bringing something to the public eye, generally the law is on the side of the person putting up the content.

The catch is that YouTube has a history of buckling in and caving when pressure from lawyers is being applied, even for secular information (check the history of Disney clips, for instance).  If anyone so much as threatens litigation, YouTube’s general policy is to yank the content.

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CS

I found several references to a Nov. 2006 trip Warren made to Syria where he made some comments that seem to be ill-informed and ill-advised and could be interpreted as being supportive of the Syrian dictatorship.  Apparently there was briefly a video of some of the comments on youtube before it was removed.  These references were on reputable websites like; World Net Daily, deceptioninthechurch, crooksandliars, the watchers lamp, and The Marsian Chronicles.  Reputable, one and all.

I can’t find any reference from youtube about it though.

While looking into this I also found out that Rick Warren is apparently a member of the ‘Illuminati”, a member of the “Masonic Council on Foreign Affairs”, and a leader of a satanic New World Order cult.  Sounds like RW has been keeping pretty busy. 

Sam, your axe grinding is drowning your credibility out.

As for Hagee...I suspect there were only a few videos that they wanted taken down...but just removing those would have been too obvious.  Instead, he nuked them all.  This would keep the videos from damaging him and make it seem like his motives were innocent in the process.

pretty smart.

Sam,

I’m a big fan of RW and probably disagree with you on him in general, but I think your concern you raise is genuine and sincere, and not just axe-grinding.

I would rather that Rick apologized for saying something he regretted and then took the file down rather than just stay mum.

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.

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.

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CS

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,
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

“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.