I’d like to take a moment today to say THANK YOU!
Thank you to all of my faithful subscribers and readers. And a special thank you to those of you who have chosen to use my curriculum in your homeschools. My family has been greatly blessed by your generosity and encouragement. I whole heartedly pray that my printables have blessed your family and your homeschooling endeavor.
Thank you!
To those of you who have gotten caught up in the popular groups that condone illegal file sharing, today my prayers go out to you.
Unfortunately there are groups of homeschoolers who are choosing to come together and “share” files they are not permitted to share. It greatly saddens my heart to think that homeschoolers would do something like this. Maybe you simply aren’t aware, but hosting and sharing files (paid or free) that were not made by you is illegal without the express written consent of the author. Downloading these files is also illegal. What you are doing is called “stealing” in the online world.
You may have even justified your actions due to your budgetary constraints, or simply out of the desire to “get a good deal.” I wonder how many of you would be able to walk up to your child and say “Honey, I really wanted this curriculum, but wanted to save money, so mommy stole it.” Conversely what would you say if your child did something similar? I hope you can understand there are no excuses for this type of behavior.
Homeschooling isn’t just about academics, but instead it is our way of imparting our character, values, morals, ethics, spiritual beliefs, and life skills onto our children. Today my prayer is that you would be encouraged to check your ways and think twice before participating in these “sharing” groups. What you are doing is not only illegal and unethical, but you are also taking advantage of all of the bloggers and homeschooling companies that have put their valuable time and energy into creating products to help your homeschooling be more successful.
My pastor has always said that “compromise always leads to more compromise.” I pray diligently that you do not allow this small compromise to creep into other areas of your life. And most importantly I pray you are not passing down these values to your children.
Instead I encourage you to trust God to provide for you as He has lead you into this homeschooling journey. He will provide for your needs and make your paths straight. ~ Proverbs 3:6
Now may the God of peace…make you complete in every good work to do His will. (Hebrews 13:20-21)
Ohhh Erica!! I’m just finding out about this!!! I’m completely shocked that fellow homeschoolers would do this to you! I’m heartbroken to hear about what has happened to you but please know that I’m here to help you in any way that I can! 🙂
Oh my word!! I am so sorry you are having to deal with this. I pray that FB will see who was actually in the wrong and take the appropriate action. It would only take them a few minutes to see that you are the legitimate one. I hope that they take those few minutes. 🙁
You have my support!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 110%
Hi Erica! I’m sorry for your troubles here lately, but I just wanted to tell you a “ginormous” THANK YOU for your awesome curriculums! I found your blog about six months ago during our first year of homeschooling. We just purchased your K4, Roadtrip USA, and the literature unit studies for our second year, and my husband and I are so excited for our kids to learn this upcoming year!! Thank you for your organization and every effort you put into your work- it is AMAZING:) God bless you and your family!
Illegal file sharers fall into two groups: those who do so because they don’t know any better and those who do so because their sense of entitlement leads them to believe they have the “right.” The actions of the second group will never be changed by a post like this one, but at least there is hope for the others. I wrote on this topic several years ago and recently republished that post (as a response to some of those entitlement minded folks). You can find it here: http://www.lilliputstation.blogspot.com/2013/04/dont-bite-hands-that-bless-you.html
When I was much younger, I learned to deal with the temptation of not paying for what I should by asking myself, How much is my integrity worth? That question got me every time and kicked the temptation in the bum!
Thank you for this post. I know that most people don’t intend to steal or share illegally. I certainly love getting freebies but not at the loss of those who worked so hard to give it to us. Usually when I share it’s something that was encouraged by the publisher to share and then we either ‘share’ the original link or link to the website that has more details. That said, what would be the best way to share products that are freebies that we’ve found? I’m unclear on that. Thank you!
Wow! I can’t believe people do that! Here I am, two kids, a laid off husband, just getting into start casually homeschooling my littlest, saving my pennies in paypal to purchase your LOTW resources (that I just stumbled upon a few days ago!) and people have the nerve to just share it for free? That is insane. I will gladly save, as long as I have to – to purchase it properly! WOW! Some people…
With your curriculum at the price you sell it, it’s very affordable. We are tight budget homeschoolers and we bought both Road Trip America and the whole world one (forgot the name) and was completely pleased with the product and price!! THANK YOU!
I was also saddened to hear about FB. I hope it’s resolved quickly!!
I just found out about this letter because CHEK (Christian Home Educators of Kentucky) posted on facebook the blog “Calling all homeschoolers” So in due diligence before jumping on any band wagon I checked to see what caused the issue and to my dismay it is true again and I think how dissatisfied God must be more so with the self-righteous people who call themselves Christians yet have no fruit or rotted fruit. It has to be worse for Him to know that people know better but rationalize their inappropriate behavior than to see the lost do things against His Glory. I know of too many church goers who copy music, copy books, copy movies and pass them around either freely or in some cases I had a so-called Christian tell me he knows where I can get any movie for the cost of a blank DVD. Really people who inappropriately copy another person’s work calls themselves Christians. I know there is some times when we wrong people and maybe you can make an argument that it is unintentional and they could try to make you believe it is OK. But Piracy continues to get worse and I can’t help but think that a lot of it is “Christians”. I think there is a bigger picture here in America and that is it is this rationalization that has led the country to the slippery slope that it is on currently. That is just my opinion though and I have found that having an opinion based on God’s Holy Word is not a very popular opinion so I am OK if people disagree with me.