📧 “Notice of modification of JBIC release” to TSW
Shane;
Caz Tod-Pearson, the ED and principal officer of The Simple Way ("TSW"), has been trying to help me understand how the rights to my likeness and work have been used since 2012 in relation to the Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream event in which I participated. On February 8, 2020, Caz stopped replying to emails so I am contacting you and the Chair of the Board, Leroy Barber, as parties bound to two contracts TSW entered into; one between me and TSW on January 2, 2012 and one between Zondervan and TSW on May 23, 2012. Before I get to the content of those agreements, I will share some context for why I recently reconsidered the agreement, and why the one you agreed to be "personally responsible" for with Zondervan is affected as well.
Following the 2018 events centered around the RLC “revival” and December gathering, I have lost any trust in you and the organizations you promote to treat my peers and me with the human dignity we deserve. For example, after a mainstage speaker stated that “fallen soldiers are victims, not heroes,” Tony Campolo had to publicly address the “negative spin that was given to people in the military.” This is just one example of how my community has been demeaned by yours, but the beginning of the end was months later, during and after my visit to your house for the "Windows on the World" lecture I gave at Eastern University. It did not come out until later that you misrepresented your intentions. You were not offering your home to an old friend, you and Don Golden were apparently sizing me up to see if I would submit to being policed for behavior that Don failed to establish ever happened.
In reflecting on our friendship from Iraq onward, I realized that you only supported my work if it reiterated your predetermined narrative and ideological commitments. Several times, I brought to your attention how I began to see that narrative as patronizing and demeaning to Christian soldiers and veterans. Spiritual maturity and theological education deprived me of the privilege of relying on tribalistic caricatures, but you continue to promote them at the expense of members of the military community. At times you have even used me as a prop to deflect criticism from other military families (and then deleted the below tweet);
Don Golden’s outlandish and unsupported claims about me disrespecting RLC staff reflects a years-old pattern I’ve witnessed in you; complex individuals and their ideas are kept cautiously at an arm’s length until they assimilate. If not, they receive silent disregard (as you provided to me) or attacks on their character (as Don supplied).
Let me be as clear as I can - this is your legal right, a right I defended for six years in uniform. Americans get to disassociate as much as they want, from objective facts human fallibility, whatever. As I cannot count on us sharing any distinctively Christian commitments, like personal humility or mutual accountability, I have to defer to our rights as Americans.
For that reason, I am exercising my legal right to withdraw from being associated with you, the organizations you lead, and the content you help to produce. I am rescinding “the right and permission to copyright and/or use and/or sell and/or distribute digital imagery, audio and/or transcribed content of myself” that I granted to The Simple Way on January 2nd, 2012.
What follows are facts that have informed my decision. I am CCing the Chair of the TSW Board, Leroy Barber, as the primary legal representative of the entity I initially entered into that agreement with. I plan to forward this email to other parties abusing my rights as well, including The Work of The People and Harper Collins Christian Publishing.
JBIC participants were told on January 2nd, 2012 that The Simple Way “had a few friends volunteer to capture the event on video… Proceeds will go to the nonprofit at The Simple Way... all other monies going to work of the nonprofit.” Because I knew that most, if not all, participants contributed without compensation, I figured the costs were very low, a few thousand dollars for travel and lodging expenses.
When Caz shared the Zondervan contract with me, it was the first time I learned that TSW earned $26,000 for it, including $16,000 for producing a video that was immediately placed behind a for-profit company's electronic paywall. That company never supplied digital copies to participants so that I/we might similarly benefit. That means that a TSW "Agent" has exercised exclusive rights that it does not possess and it has done so in pursuit of profit.
In Paragraph 9(a)(1) of the agreement, Zondervan was told that TSW was the “sole owner” of rights that had, in fact, only been licensed from participants like me. Because TSW does not ‘solely own’ the rights granted by the Releases, Zondervan could conclude that TSW withheld information from them. If so, then the claim made in the first sentence of Paragraph 23 may also be false; the fact is that TSW knew there were rights it did not possess and it did make other warranties, to an unknown number of event participants like me. This is why I am CCing the Chair of the Board, since it may appear that you have exposed the nonprofit to legal liability.
While I am not asserting a right to privacy under Paragraph 9(a)(3), I do have the right to withdraw any and all prior permission “to copyright and/or use and/or sell and/or distribute digital imagery, audio and/ or transcribed content of myself.” The Release I signed does not have any language comparable to Paragraph 23 of the Zondervan agreement, limiting modification to two-party written consent, so I possess the right to withdraw unilaterally. I do not need TSWs permission to withdraw and the rights revert back to me immediately when I do.
According to paragraph 9(c)(1), TSW will have to “promptly inform” Zondervan if I revoke the license to use my likeness and work for the DVD. I expect my likeness and work to be removed entirely from all assets and properties owned, maintained, or managed by every TSW agent. That would include Zondervan and The Work of the People. However, I am willing to re-negotiate the license rather than enforce my rights immediately. I can think of two things I will ask for in negotiation;
a copy of all audio and video captured of or containing me from the event in September 2011
a public statement/apology about soldiers and veterans by and from Shane, specifics of which we can discuss at a later date with a neutral third party agreed upon by us both, posted to all social media channels and blogs owned or operated by TSW.
If TSW cannot or will not negotiate, then I will enforce my legal right to prohibit my work and my likeness from being used for profit in ways that violate or misrepresent my values.On Monday, February 17th at 6:00am Eastern Standard Time I will send out demand lettersto The Work of the People and Zondervan if TSW refuses to negotiate, or fails to express an interest in so doing, before that time.
