Ellen Kavanaugh
I have a few thoughts to share regarding (yet another) plagiarism / copyright infringement of my articles from this site. (This time it was my Oneness vs Trinity article: http://www.lightofmashiach.org/one.html). To be honest, I almost prefer not to know when my work is used without credit, feeling that at least the message of Torah and Yeshua is getting out there. But I realize that if I do know, I must act or I become part of a corrupt system that looks the other way when material is stolen. And the worst part, to me, is that it is almost always a Messianic believer taking my work (what other group has the least interest in this site's information, anyway?) We are supposed to be Torah-observant -- we are supposed to be honest, eager to please G-d, eager to avoid even the appearance of evil. (Earlier this week, a friend of mine suggested I write an article on messianic ethics, this short piece may evolve into just that, later down the road).
Now, to be fair, most people, when informed my work is copyrighted and NOT public domain; apologize and repost with credit to this site. And some will simply remove the article in question without responding to my email. But then, sadly, there have been a few who immediately take the worldly "how can I legally keep this stolen material anyway" strategy instead of the moral and ethical stance of apologizing and making reparations (giving credit or removing it).
I remember a few years ago my work was stolen by this guy who used my "Not JewsForJesus" letter, but he altered it so that wherever I had written "Jews For Jesus" he had changed that to, "Jews For Jesus, a cult." This guy did remove the article when asked, but not because stealing it and then altering it had been wrong. He removed it because he said he hadn't known a woman wrote it, and he didn't believe in allowing "women to teach." lol
Folks -- we are Messianics! We are held to a higher standard. We give Messianics in general a bad name when we steal something. Still worse, when we steal something and then lie about how we received the material (and it's ALWAYS "sent" to these innocent thieves via email -- they never find anything on the web themselves). And they certainly won't admit to being the one who altered the material (or tried to disguise it). Oy vey! But worst of all, we hurt ourselves and our relationship with G-d. We can't even pray when our own sin puts up a wall between us and the only Hope we have. We are Messianics! Even if we did receive material uncredited, we could always google it to find it's original owner. Or visit archive.org. At the very least, the one thing we would know with absolute surety, was that the found work wasn't ours!
Remember,"Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another." Lev 19:11
A final Torah passage regarding "found items" came to mind when I thought of "finding" someone else's work and using it:
"Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.
"And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
"In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself." Deut 22:1-3.
A friend sent me a link to a good blog you may enjoy on this topic,
Messianic Ethics and the World Wide Web