This is a Guest Post by Andrew Mason. You can follow him on Twitter: @Bayshorts.
I’ll admit it. I’m guilty.
I copy ideas all the time. Website designs, css styles, original content….I even tweepeat without due credit. And this question plagues my mental backburner:
At what point does modeling & tweaking original material become copying?
Sure, you can add your own color scheme or snag a font here or there, but when are your “creations” just carbons of someone’s good substance? When is blog fodder just an aggregate of other people’s writing & research ability?
If other “successful” churches are web-campusing their services, should your church follow suite? Is it alright to “open-source” and tweak? And at what point does an original idea belong “to the public?”
Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit” hits on the tension between creating something original & copying those that have gone before you, and this idea easily translates online. She argues that in order to become great, you copy anything talented people have already created. Learn by doing, but add your own flair to the creation. When do the lines blur enough that you can claim a technology, blog subject, or even entire website design as your own?
The concept of “social media” would never have existed in it’s current form without twitter, facebook, myspace, email, and bulletin boards preceding it. So, is copy/tweaking an okay thing?
In the so-called “Church-World,” how much of it is really up for grabs?
Does it matter who gets credit as long as God gets credit?