I want to share with you something that happened to
me today.
Yesterday, I worked all day preparing a music video
for the popular Jewish hymn “Adon Olam”. When I was done, I uploaded it onto YouTube (and also shared it in my previous blog entry).
The time was already quite late, so I called it a day. This morning, when I got up, I
went to check on my video, and found a message from YouTube that a “Music
Publishing Rights Collecting Society” claimed copyrights to the hymn I
uploaded. It gave me the option to dispute the claim, but with a warning that
if I filed a false claim, my account will be suspended.
I know for certain that the song is a few hundred
years old, and is in the public domain, so I followed the instructions for filing
a dispute; but when the time came to click “send”, I hesitated. The warning
troubled me. I thought to myself, “Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society” sounds
so formidable. What if there is something I’m not aware of… or else, why would they
claim copyrights to the hymn? Do I want to risk having my account suspended? After
a few moments, I decided to just go for it, and I filed my dispute.
Not two minutes later, I received an email from
YouTube, stating that “Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society has reviewed
your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video”.
Now, it would have taken a superman to be able to
review my dispute and respond to it so quickly… So I must conclude that it was
an automated response. In other words, they know that they claim copyrights unjustly,
but are also aware of the fact that most people would be afraid to stand up to
someone with such a formal title as “Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society”…
Well, apart from feeling elation all day over this
little victory, I also understood the lesson God wanted me to learn.
Sometimes we feel like little David facing what
appears to be a Goliath… We cry out, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
from whence cometh my help?” (Psalm 121:1); when in fact the hills we think we see
are merely molehills…
It reminds me of the story in Judges 9:36: “And when
Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the
top of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the
mountains as if they were men…”
So, don’t allow yourself to be intimidated too
easily… Sometimes it really is just the shadow of something very small appearing
too big to handle…
Be still, my beloved, and stay blessed in the
everlasting arms of Jesus!
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