...Making information available for free is a good thing, and the most innovative and influential churches and ecclesial organizations have already begun making things like sermons and sermon outlines available online for free download. There are still some organizations and churches that want to charge exhorbitant prices to get a CD of audio talks (like those of speeches given at denominational General Assemblies, for instance.) And there are organizations that are simply out of touch culturally and technologically who sell cassette tapes for $5.00 or $10.00 by mail....
Hey, fellow Christians, if I may bring something to your notice, your problem is not creating revenue with your sermons, nor is your problem the potential for someone stealing your sermon content and using it without your permission. Your problem is obscurity....
The affinities that exist between the way the church ought to act in culture and the movements of Free Culture and Open Access to Knowledge are manifold. In this case, I think that the secular shapers of culture are way out in front of the church....
A small number of theological journals are already openly accessible, but most aren’t....What I would like to see is the creation of an Internet Commons of theological articles....
The bottom line for churches, seminaries, leadership organizations, conferences and colloquia is this: Share your information. Post your audio files and documents on the web. If they’re good, they are needed. If they’re bad, at least posting is very cheap....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/21/2007 01:56:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
