Freely-Given.org Long Overview Page

Purpose of Freely-Given.org

A couple of thousand years ago, Jesus told his disciples to freely give to others because they had already been freely given so much. (See Matthew 10:7-8 in the NLT or NIV.)

This website is intended to be a central point for finding and downloading free resources which are either explicitly related to Christianity, or which might be useful to those interested in Christian things.

One of the important features that we want to implement on this site is to have graded reviews of the resources to help you choose which ones are likely to be the most helpful to your situation. So even when we have links to other sites, we will try to add value with our reviews and ratings.

Copyrights in the Digital Age

In the book age (the 19th and 20th centuries), copyright controls gradually crept into printed Christian publications such as Bibles, and then on into songs and music, teaching and discipleship resources, videos and DVDs, etc. Because books have a substantial material cost (for the paper, ink, printing, binding, etc), the copyright or royalty payment was usually relatively unnoticeable in the final price.

Now in the digital age (the Internet age), the material costs (server and bandwidth costs) are usually quite neglible for any one item. The copyright or royalty cost becomes a MUCH larger proportion of the final price. And these same copyrights greatly restrict the distribution, adaptation, translation, and other uses of Christian materials.

Of course, this doesn't affect the Western world so much where most people have resources (including access to credit cards) for buying online, but rather it mostly hampers the spread and use of good Christian resources in the developing world.

While we believe that anyone is entitled to copyright and restrict the use of their work, this site is dedicated to promoting and linking to Christian and other related or useful materials which are freely available.

There are two places where we recommend that you read more about these issues:
unfoldingWord papers, and
Rob's Open Scripture blog.

If this inspires you and you would like to contribute, please look at the opportunities page.

If you would like to comment on any of these issues, please use the contact page.