I own the copyright of all the materials I produce, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Increasingly, people are sharing these materials in ways I have not authorized without asking me.
Please do:
I give all people everywhere unrestricted permission to:
- Share links to the audio and video resources I have posted in the past on this blog and YouTube and the books I sell for print cost on Amazon. You have the right to share PDFs and audio files, but do not repost them publicly, and I would prefer you sharing the link to where I have posted them rather than the content itself, so they know where to find more.
- Share brief quotes from anything I've written, so long as they cite the quote. Providing links back to the original postings is helpful.
Please do not:
I do not give anyone permission to:
- Mirror (repost) the audio, video, or PDF resources I have created.
- Make new audio recordings of any of the text I have published.
- Publish any transcriptions of any of the videos I post to YouTube. If people make personal transcriptions and wish to make them public, they can send them to me, but I reserve the right to decline.
- Edit existing audio or video that I have published.
- Any requests for exceptions to these guidelines should be emailed to me at the name of the blog at gmail.com, but please realize that the answer will almost always be no.
Reasons:
- As I explained in the impulses and echoes video, there are two kinds of people I cannot reach: those who do not know about or have access to my materials, and those who would not accept them from me or in the form I give them.
- You reach the first group through forwarding links or sharing books. Doing so in ways other than what I've granted permission for will come at the cost of diluting the source and reducing access to other content. Please don't do that.
- You reach the second group by actually putting things into your own words. The second group will not be reached by simply editing or reposting content, unless someone is volunteering their time and talents to make high quality videos subject to my full creative control, as Cindy Hughes did with the audio recordings.
- The videos were never meant to be a careful, definitive resource on the same level as the books, and there are too many people who would abuse a transcription by using it as an excuse to feel they are informed while not reading the books. No one who would benefit from the videos but is unwilling to watch them will magically get everything intended out of them by reading transcripts. And no one who would benefit from the videos will experience any significant boost by watching slightly edited versions of them.
- If a book does not have an audio version or that audio version is not posted to YouTube, there is a reason. Most of the forthcoming books (if not all) will not have audio versions. There is a reason. The time is at hand where someone who is not willing to read a book simply wouldn't do any good for themselves to listen to it instead (unless they are visually impaired--if this is your case, please email me). Please do not post your own audiobooks. It will detract from my mission, not help it.
- It is impossible to preach the gospel in power without sincerity, and sincerity only comes through repentance. You cannot powerfully demonstrate something you have not yet become. If you are sharing what you were given by handing it to someone else, great. If you intent to contribute to the message, the only significant way to do that is enter into the gate yourself.
- Any time truth is revealed, it comes with new exposure to consequences. It is always a wedge, and everything will end either higher or lower than it was before. The presence of the sword will alway cut. The question is whether it cuts you higher or cuts you lower, and your reaction alone decides that question. I have been as liberal and free with sharing these things as one can be. One unfortunate aspect of human nature is that the easier God makes it for us to have access to good things, the less we appreciate them, and the more we abuse them. My greatest hope is that you extract, apply, and share the full value of anything I publish. But whatever you do, please don't make it worse than it already is for both you and the world by misusing them against my explicit request.
- When God gives you something and tells you exactly why he's doing so, and then you do something completely different than what he asked you to, it is very bad, in spite of being a common reaction. This is the theme of "obedience vs. sacrifice" and "zeal without knowledge," which are probably better expressed as "sacrifice instead of obedience" and "zeal contrary to knowledge."
NOTE:
All of this applies to everything published prior to today (10/31/2022). I am seriously considering changing the copyright policy on future books, and possibly not publishing PDF versions, in response to the same activities that have caused me to write this post. Honestly, I just haven't had time to think more about it because I've been so busy writing.