Should prayers and hymns be part of the commons?

I must say that it brings me great joy to read that the issue of the privatization of prayers and hymns is becoming a source of controversy. This blogger provides a thoughtful post on the problems that copyright has caused the Catholic faith.

Charity, they say, begins at home. Imagine some poor bloke or lass, terminal with AIDS, who sends around a prayer that is under copyright, as chain e-mail. As in the type of e-mail that says ‘forward to 9 people on your contacts’ list, to bring the “good luck” of healing.” Would such an unfortunate soul be risking a millions of dollars judgement for illegal file sharing?

He also draws attention to the eye-opening story in Catholic Insight on the rise of copyright in the Canadian Catholic Book of Worship.