Podcasting the Gospel

Imagine with me, for a moment, a world where the radio stations broadcast nothing but sermons from skilled preachers from across the country, nay, the world. What if your family fought over which preacher to watch on television on any given night? You might scoff at such a vision, but with today's technology, this can be reality.

Obviously, economics dictate that a radio station would not last long broadcasting nothing but the plain gospel. A radio station must appeal to the masses at large in order to produce advertising revenue. But today, such barriers are breaking down as Chris Anderson's 2004 article entitled "The Long Tail" explains:

The other constraint of the physical world is physics itself. The radio spectrum can carry only so many stations, and a coaxial cable so many TV channels. And, of course, there are only 24 hours a day of programming. The curse of broadcast technologies is that they are profligate users of limited resources. The result is yet another instance of having to aggregate large audiences in one geographic area - another high bar, above which only a fraction of potential content rises.

The past century of entertainment has offered an easy solution to these constraints. Hits fill theaters, fly off shelves, and keep listeners and viewers from touching their dials and remotes. Nothing wrong with that; indeed, sociologists will tell you that hits are hardwired into human psychology, the combinatorial effect of conformity and word of mouth. And to be sure, a healthy share of hits earn their place: Great songs, movies, and books attract big, broad audiences.

But most of us want more than just hits. Everyone's taste departs from the mainstream somewhere, and the more we explore alternatives, the more we're drawn to them. Unfortunately, in recent decades such alternatives have been pushed to the fringes by pumped-up marketing vehicles built to order by industries that desperately need them.

Hit-driven economics is a creation of an age without enough room to carry everything for everybody. Not enough shelf space for all the CDs, DVDs, and games produced. Not enough screens to show all the available movies. Not enough channels to broadcast all the TV programs, not enough radio waves to play all the music created, and not enough hours in the day to squeeze everything out through either of those sets of slots.

This is the world of scarcity. Now, with online distribution and retail, we are entering a world of abundance. And the differences are profound.

Face it, the gospel is unprofitable from a business' perspective, but when distribution is near-free, business need not apply. The Internet provides the medium for distribution to the entire world at a low cost.

What we commonly think of as the Internet is the World Wide Web, a collection of pages we peruse via a web browser. This may be a step in the direction toward our goal, but it doesn't satisfy our need for distribution. The process of searching the web for content and downloading the content from the website onto your iPod has to be repeated day-to-day in order to find content when it has been updated. This tedious process is a barrier to entry and may undo the gains of cheap digital distribution.

Fortunately, a system has been developed where the content will come to you. This system, commonly referred to as Podcasting, is based on RSS (or Real Simple Syndication). Without diving into the gory details, RSS allows you to get new content when it has been updated. In fact, this blog has its own RSS feed that updates whenever I post a new entry (see it here) which you can subscribe to with a client like Google Reader.

A Podcast marries RSS with audio and video content and your mobile device. When a new media file is available, it will automatically be downloaded into your iPod and ready for you to listen to while jogging, driving to work, or unwinding in your easy chair. The effort to find the content is expended once, and from then on, it finds you.

Now imagine if preachers everywhere put their sermons online as an audio or video Podcast. You would have a virtually endless supply of spiritual content to consume instead of settling for the trash that the for-profit media shovels out. Instead of listening to profane music or political commentary during your commute, you can hear the gospel. Instead of turning the channels on your television, you could be clicking through the video podcasts on your iPod.

Copyleft and Hymns

We hardly notice the print at the bottom of the pages of our songbooks, but at the bottom of most pages you will see a tiny blurb of legalese. This tiny copyright notice has great implications. By law, this copyright gives the author of the song the sole right to copy it, to create derivative works from it, and to distribute it by sale or license to the public.

To create those songbooks that we use each week, someone had to obtain licenses to legally copy those songs and sell the collection the public. You couldn't, for instance, legally photocopy those songs for use in your congregation without first obtaining a license, even if there was no monetary profit in it for you. You would have to contact the copyright holder to get permission for each and every song. What a chore!

As Christians, we must respect the law of the land, and I see several burdens copyright poses Christians in order to stay compliant:

• A financial burden to buy licensed copies. Of course, copyright holders may not charge for licenses, but the burden is still upon those who want to make the copy to obtain it.
  
• A burden of a stagnant repertoire of songs. You see the same ol' songbooks at congregations everywhere and creating supplemental songbooks means obtaining licenses.
  
• A burden on events like camps or lectureships. Who paid for those licenses? A congregation? The organizers? The attendees?

Recently, there has been great momentum behind the idea of the Creative Commons and their set of licenses to help facilitate free legal-sharing and copying of creative works like songs. Their licenses allow copyright holders to maintain their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work. Creators choose to allow free distribution of their works while maintaining any of the following:

• Attribution - You must be given credit for your work
  
• Share Alike - Derivative works must be given the same license as the original
  
• Noncommercial - Copies or derivative works must not be used for profit
  
• No derivative works - As it says, the original must remain intact without modification.

To me, the ideal license would be the "Attribution Share-Alike" or the "Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike". Authors can decide for themselves what combination of the above is best for them.

Think of the implications if all songs were licensed in such a way. Just imagine a congregation -- without the money to pay for the latest songbooks -- can now go to the web and download the songs that they think are appropriate and scriptural, and compile their own songbooks and supplements legally, for free! Furthermore, there's no more temptation to violate the law in order to praise God. What a blessing!

What do songwriters think about licensing their songs this way? Is there anything holding you back? I encourage you to consider it, comment below, and visit the Creative Commons website to learn more.

Welcome to the (the|techn)ology blog

I've created this blog to discuss two passions of my life: all things God and geek (with obvious deference to the former). These two strangers - often secluded in their own little world - occasionally meet in that jumbled brain of mine. This blog is their conversation.

God's word has survived and thrived for centuries without the modern technology of today. While the argument could be made that modern conveniences have done more to hinder the gospel than to help it, I believe these two can work together for good.

Here is a sampling of the topics I will be discussing in future posts:

• Copyleft and hymns
• Syndicated gospel meetings
  

Please leave comments and join the conversation!