[Worship] RE: A CCLI Question (...yet more!)

["Kurt Nelson, The Church Song Sheet Company" <kurt@churchsongsheets.com>]

Hi all,

Just when I thought this thread had run its course, I get moved to add my
two cents! (And that's probably all it's worth... but it's food for
thought.)

It does state in the US License Holders Manual that the church's CCLI
license number shall appear at the end of every song. I contacted CCLI
within the last 6 months asking the question "Does a church just put the
license number at the end of the bulletin, or does it HAVE to be under EACH
song?" Their answer back was... "Yup. Under EACH song. Period."

I've had some discussions with CCLI regarding some other issues, and have
learned a little more about the "behind the scenes" stuff that we probably
never think about. From these discussions, I think that this requirement of
"license number under each song" is not actually a CCLI mandate... but a
mandate from the copyright holders and administrators themselves.

Just as many of us have contracts with CCLI, CCLI also has contracts with
all the copyright administrators to allow us all to use these songs through
their service. My educated guess (and purely that) is that the copyright
administrators have written this requirement into CCLI's contract to help
deter piracy and illegal copying. CCLI is only doing what they have no
choice in doing - passing along these requirements.

If you can remember when CCLI was starting out, or have done your history
homework, it wasn't all roses for them in the beginning. I'm sure they were
viewed as the work of the devil by some catalogs. In the process of making
these songs available to us, without having to deal with contacting each and
every copyright holder, I'm thinking CCLI had to make some compromises to
address the concerns of the publishing industry. And the license number
requirement is probably one of them.

Anyway... I've rambled on enough. Just thought I'd add another dimension to
the discussion before people got too hot and bothered with CCLI.

Kurt Nelson
The Church Song Sheet Company
www.ChurchSongSheets.com



-----Original Message-----
--__--__--

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:21:37 +0100
To: worship@praise.net
From: Michael Lehr <michael.lehr@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: [Worship] A CCLI Question

Alan Crume <a.crume@tcu.edu> wrote:
> Steve Cobb <steve@worshipfulheart.com> wrote@

> > 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....

Oddly (and I speak as both someone who benefits to an extent from
royalties through CCLI and who has also administered things from a
church standpoint), I don't recall any such conditions in UK agreements.
 Certainly they aren't stressed at all.

Frankly, if usage of songs is being correctly reported, I don't see much
importance to the CCLI number being put on a slide.  Since CCLI doesn't
have any involvement in the copyright, it's the copyright details that
are more important.  Even then, I doubt that almost anyone would note
the information when a song is screened in worship.

I guess there's always the possibility that someone will photocopy an
overhead or print from a computer, but I rather suspect that
photocopying from songbooks is far more rife.

That being said, I do agree that if we enter into an agreement (even if
over-paranoid) we should abide by its terms.  That's only correct.  But,
in any case, it would be the CCLI reference of the *song* that would be
important, and not a reference to the user (which is totally irrelevant
in copyright terms).

Michael Lehr
Reflection Christian Music
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/mlehr/reflec/reflec.htm




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