I have a confession to make. I have illegally downloaded music from some of my favorite Christian hip-hop artists using apps on my previous phone and an app on my previous computer. Stealing is a grave sin. One of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall not steal.”
Lately I have been convicted about the music that I have stolen in the past. Yes, stolen is the right word to describe it. Last week I deleted over 900 songs from my iTunes, about 850 of which were Christian hip-hop songs. When I was clicking “delete” on those songs and albums, I was thinking to myself, “Are you really doing this? This is crazy!” I deleted a ton of great songs and albums that I have listened to many times.
Though I haven’t illegally downloaded a song in almost a year, that does not change the fact that I had done that in the past. Since I have stopped stealing music, there have been many great albums that I have wanted to get but have not been able to for various reasons. I had $1,000 worth of songs that I did not pay for. Of most of those songs and albums that I deleted, I will never end up purchasing them. Here is a theoretical situation… Imagine a jewelry thief gives up their sin of stealing and says, “God, I am not going to steal anymore,” but keeps all of the jewelry that they have stolen in the past… That is ridiculous, but that is what I had been doing. I am not going to do that anymore.
I challenge every reader to join me and delete all of the songs that they have stolen, whether that is five songs or two thousand songs. If you really want to listen to the song but don’t want to purchase it, you can listen to it using online streaming services and sites such as Spotify. You might argue that artists make very little money from streaming services from Spotify, but that is an excuse; they make no money from you stealing their songs and albums. God is not okay with you stealing music if it has a Christian message.
What will you do? Choose wisely.
Nice! Praise God! My remedy for piracy was Spotify.
thanks for sharing this.
what if there were albums that were givin out for free by the artist themsleves?
Well, if the artist was giving them out for free, would that be stealing or illegal?
illegal wouldn’t it, what about free downloads for example like from soundcloud?
Again, if the artist is sharing it themselves, it wouldn’t be illegal, would it?
I used to do the same but i buy music now. It makes me feel better knowing that im not stealing it. 🙂
I did the same thing, and I deleted the ones I downloaded
Awesome! After reading this article I went and deleted around 2500 songs. Thanks for sharing!
Your welcome David!
“God is not okay with you stealing “music if it has a Christian message.” Is God ok with it if the artist does NOT have a Christian message? Lol! I absolutely agree with everything in the article, I personally don’t think these artists get paid enough for their craft!!!
Good point!
Great testomony. Am I free to respond? I mean I don’t want to disshonor your decision. Years ago I decided to NOT d/l illegal anymore, but like months later on I started doing it again. Via illegal d/l’s I came in touch in CHH and switched from secular to even worship songs like Benny Hinn / Al Green / and some more. I discovered Pettidee and I was mad enthousiastic about it. I finally found my genre of music in a good way and really hardcore. S/o to Pettidee btw. So yes I think it’s better to buy the music, but I also support the thought of the music reaching the hearts of men. Avoiding suicide attempts, decisions made to attent church services, quiting with gangbanging, stop whoring around and stuff like that. S/o to everyone who deleted there d/l’s, I respect y’all. Now with the streaming, I don’t even think about d/l anymore, because for example I could legally listen to Derik Minor’s NEW Empire album. It’s the bomb btw.
Thank you for sharing. As Fouad shared above, many CHH artists now do put out free material to make it more accessible to people who might not purchase for it right away. Lecrae did that with ‘Church Clothes 1’ and ‘Church Clothes 2’ and both were targeted to the mainstream/secular audience.
I have done this myself. I now am really caution about downloading music for free I make sure its from a reliable source and the artist MADE it free for promotional purposes.