The Gospel Music Association isn't exactly singing "hallelujah" over the news that avowedly Christian teenagers are getting gospel music through Internet downloads and CD burnings at a rate comparable to that of secular music fans in the vast peer-to-peer community.
Association president John Styll told the Dallas Morning News he was surprised and disappointed to learn of Christian teenagers behaving so similarly to non-Christian teens when it came to music downloading.
But the downloaders themselves don't quite see it that way, Agape Press said. "Talks with (Christian) teens reveal that many simply do not think of it as stealing when they copy CDs or download free music from the Internet, or even when they share such unauthorized copies with others," the news service said.
A poll taken by the Barna Group, which performs tracking and surveying from a religious perspective, says one in 10 Christian teens they surveyed consider online music piracy to be morally wrong and 64 percent of them said they participated in one or another kind of music piracy.
Agape also said that "many" adult believers "and even church leaders" think Christian teenagers downloading gospel music from cyberspace is no big deal. "Some suggest," the news service said, "that getting the gospel message out should matter more to industry professionals than getting paid anyway."
Tell that to Barry Landis, president of gospel label Word Records. "You would never steal Bibles to give them away," he told the Morning News. "You shouldn't steal Christian music to give away, either."
