Who owns God's communications?

It may be the Open Source movement's inflence on me, but I have always had difficulty with the idea of copyrights on religous teaching.

Vatican 'cashes in' by putting price on the Pope's copyright - World - Times Online
For the first time all papal documents, including encyclicals, will be governed by copyright invested in the official Vatican publishing house, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

The edict covers Pope Benedict XVI�s first encyclical, which is to be issued this week amid huge international interest. The edict is retroactive, covering not only the writings of the present pontiff � as Pope and as cardinal � but also those of his predecessors over the past 50 years. It therefore includes anything written by John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI and John XXIII.

Many religous teachings are copywrited. Pastors often purchase their sermons from companies like sermons.com or creativepastors.com and use them in their churches. In general, I think this practice is good, as it allows them to present a more carefully crafted message than they could if they started fresh each time.

Some Bible translations (notably the NIV) have fairly restrictive copyrights on them. It is difficult to give away a computer program that has the NIV translation in it.

In general, I don't think that God's Word, or the related discussions should be unavailable to anyone. We should want this message copied and spread to as many people as possible.

Does God want people to have to pay to learn about him? I certainly would be interested in people's opinions on this.