Zippy Getting Snippy?

Got a Google Alert today about BC6 study subject Andy Stanley. It appears that he takes some blogger to task for posting copyrighted material from a recent Catalyst conference. The exact comment he posted on Ryan Crozier's inside my head reads "Ryan, Help me out. Why is it that bloggers feel the freedom to reprint copyrighted material on their blogs? You certainly aren't the only one. Craig and I have found our notes printed on several cites. It happens any time I speak from distributed notes. Quoting is one thing. But reprinting copyrighted material seems a bit much. Help me out. What makes that ok in your mind? Again, you aren’t alone, you’re just the guy I decided to ask. Thanks, Andy" Not too rough except if you consider that you are Andy Stanley super celebrity pastor revered by the youthful blogosphere. Setting aside the intense disappointment the kid probably felt from getting his hand smacked by one of the paragons of Christian leadership, does Andy have a point? It is his stuff, his work. But as we think more about it, we wonder. When you are in the business of evangelism, when your whole mission is about getting information and ideas out to people, what difference does copyright make? When one's job is doing the work of the kingdom of heaven, how do those tricky kingdom of the world laws factor in? We empathize with Andy but we also think that it's a little more complicated than his comment suggests. If he asked us to "help him out" we'd start by suggesting he decide what's in and what's out of bounds for sharing broadly and why. Is it good enough to credit him or does he really mean that he doesn't want things reproduced. Communicate clearly about the boundaries before asking people to respect them - that's our advice. Most of the bloggers that repost these things are only invested in getting the word out. It's what people like Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel inspire them to do. Heck. They think that they're all on the same team.