As I told you this morning, Mars Hill has celebrated its last service. But this doesn't mean that we've seen the last of Mars Hill founder Mark Driscoll. As I mentioned last week, Driscoll launched markdriscoll.org, a website promoting Mark Driscoll and asking for money to help promote Mark Driscoll. But over the weekend, Warren Throckmorton wrote a very interesting post about Driscoll's new website.

Seems whoever put up Driscoll's new site basically just copied the code of Mars Hill's website, and nobody at Mars Hill would tell Throckmorton if they gave permission to Driscoll to use the site for his own. If Mars Hill didn't give Driscoll permission, Throckmorton points out, his site is in violation of Mars Hill's terms of service:

All sermons, articles, blog posts, text, graphics, user interfaces, visual interfaces, photographs, trademarks, logos, sounds, music, artwork and computer code (collectively, “Content”), including but not limited to the design, structure, selection, coordination, expression, “look and feel” and arrangement of such Content, contained on the Site is owned, controlled or licensed by or to Mars Hill Church, and is protected by trade dress, copyright, patent and trademark laws, and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws.

This morning, markdriscoll.org was unavailable, but it just went back online. Here are the terms of service on his site:

All sermons, articles, blog posts, text, graphics, user interfaces, visual interfaces, photographs, trademarks, logos, sounds, music, artwork and computer code (collectively, “Content”), including but not limited to the design, structure, selection, coordination, expression, “look and feel” and arrangement of such Content, contained on the Site is owned, controlled or licensed by or to Learning for Living and/or Pastor Mark Driscoll, and is protected by trade dress, copyright, patent and trademark laws, and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws.

Huh. That looks, uh, strikingly similar. It's important to note, too, that the source code for markdriscoll.org still contains a bunch of references to Mars Hill in it, as in this header code right at the top of the page: "It's all about Jesus, and Mars Hill Church exists to make disciples and plant churches in his name." Mars Hill is plastered all over the front page's source code, too:

Click to enlarge.
  • Click to enlarge.

Double huh. Say, didn't Mark Driscoll just go through a plagiarism scandal? In light of his history of shameless unattributed copying, why wouldn't Pastor Mark pay someone to make a new site for him? Keep your eye on Throckmorton's site as this story develops.