RE: [Worship] A CCLI Question

["Crume, Alan" <a.crume@tcu.edu>]

Comments follow

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Cobb [mailto:steve@worshipfulheart.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:50 AM
> To: worship@praise.net
> Subject: RE: [Worship] A CCLI Question
> My general feelings about this when dealing with Video slides is to 
> decide what's more important. In my opinion, a ccli number within the 
> projected announcements with some sort of decleration that all song 
> lyrics used are under that number would suffice. (of course that's my 
> opinion....not in the letter of the law)

But if it puts you in violation of your covenant (contract) with CCLI (and through them, the artists) isn't that a scary thing? Check out what the Bible says about how God feels about covenant violators....

> In my opinion, a ccli number 
> on every slide....or even on song titles are annoying and would not 
> really be a help in worship. To me, it's a constant reminder of the 
> commercialism that is within the faith. Don't get me wrong....I'm all 
> for copyrights. BUT any true christian song writer and lawyer would 
> not pursue (once again....in my opinion) a church because they only 
> put their ccli number in the announcements, or just in the bulletin. 

You seem to have the wrong idea of why CCLI wants their license number on each slide. From what I've gathered from CCLI the primary reason is to protect the artist. If someone copies (either "Xeroxes" or by hand) having the copyright info and the number reminds them that this is material that is not in the public domain. A blanket announcement is, in fact, misleading because any public domain songs are not covered nor are any that are locally produced (like our WL's own songs that I keep bugging her to register with CCLI but she doesn't! :-) ).

> In my opinion, the greater importance is worshipping, not the ccli 
> number. I would imagine that ccli numbers and copyrights are of 
> little importance to God. He owns it all and He promises to 
> provide....whether or not we get credit and payment for what He has 
> given to us.

No, you misunderstand. If the church is faithful in reporting (and we all are, aren't we :-) ) the artist gets their royalty whether or not the number is on the slide or copy. But again, you agreed to put that information when you signed the covenant with CCLI -- to fail to do so makes you a covenant violator. It's not about the composer -- it's about our integrity and doing what we said we'd do.

>[snipped]
> I have always had a problem with actual scripture being 
> copyrighted. I can understand notes and other extra inserts.....but 
> now by law we're not allowed to quote a certain amount of scripture 
> without giving credit to NIV, NKJV, NASB, or other translations? An 
> NIV Bible that I have states: "Any commentary or other Biblical 
> reference work produced for commercial sale that uses the New 
> International Version must obtain written permission for use of the 
> NIV text" ?! Didn't God write the Bible? Why on earth would I need to 
> obtain written permission from any group of humans to quote Bible 
> scripture in a book?

Note that it says "...for commercial sale..." You only need permission to quote if you are deriving income from that use. If you read the whole notice even commercial use is allowed as long as the amount is limited -- no fair quoting a whole chapter and adding "me too!". BTW God wrote the Bible -- but we are using the fruits of man's labor in translating it from the original languages into 21st C. English (American?). Use the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek originals or make your own translations -- then you can set the limits for fair use. Remember that the NIV did not have a King Jimmy to underwrite the expenses of the company of scholars for the years that it took to produce the NIV.


> I believe in paying all who are worthy of their 
> wages....including songwriters, publishers, managers and all 
> others...my only point is that it seems some people in today's 
> society may be taking that right too far and end up requiring so much 
> control over 'their' work that the work's intended ministry is 
> hindered.

Much of this "control" stems from the 19th C. and before where composers like Beethoven, Schubert, and Hayden had to write so much partially because the pirated versions of their music came out almost as fast as the "authorized" versions -- sometimes even copied from the real ones. Handel made many rich but saw little of it himself. Beethoven had to make arrangements of much of his works for home use in order to pay expenses.

BTW, how is putting "Used by Permission. CCLI #123456" & the copyright info hindering ministry? SongShowPlus (and I imagine many other displays) will even do it for you. Maybe if your number is 666..... :-) (But I have a feeling that CCLI has not used that number!) 2nd BTW -- did you know that CCLI started out as part of a church (Portland, OR) that found themselves spending so much time finding and getting copyright approvals that they started it as a ministry to other churches?

> Anyway....I'll quit rambling :) I hope you all have a wonderful day.
> Steve Cobb
> Worshipful Heart Ministries

As will I....

Yours in Him,
Alan Crume
mailto:a.crume@tcu.edu

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