If a church can afford it AND if that church is not “liturgical”. If it is traditional (eg Catholic) church using hymns (not juse P&W) material by the folk/contemporary composers of the last 30 years, then one of the other companies should be used, because CCLI doesn’t cover much of this (for example, the St Louis “jesuits”, much Marty Haugen and Bernadette Farrell).
Those who are interested may like to read through this blurb that I’ve written and used elsewhere (warning, it’s kinda long, those who aren’t interested, tune out now!).
NB a later post said: “making tapes was legal, but now we want to make CDs and it’s not” - sorry, you just didn’t know that the tapes were illegal. If CDs are illegal (without appropriate licencing) in your country, then so are tapes, DVDs, etc etc etc.
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There is an international convention, implemented in many countrys’ copyright law, that allows any piece of music to be performed within a worship service without any copyright considerations or performance licensing needed.
However this only applies within the service: if music is used (either live or canned) before or after the service, or piped into the foyer, or played at the wedding reception in the hall (etc) then the VENUE needs an appropriate performance licence. These can be purchased from Performing Rights Organisations (PROs) like APRA (Australasian Performing Rights Association), BMI, ASCAP etc.
Commercial use (eg performing pieces at a public concert for which tickets are sold) requires yet another type of performance licence. This must be secured for each performance, but is generally also handled by the PROs.
Also, churches usually want their congregation join in the songs. If everyone knows the lyrics and tune, then it’s just a big “performance”. But typically they don’t, so the church needs to show the words, and maybe the notation. Previously churches purchased hymn books, so the publishers sorted out copyright and the fee was included in the price. But when technology provided cheapish photocopying, overhead projectors and then data-projectors, churches started showing words and sometimes notation, without having a book for each person. Initially, they were breaking the law, so publishers complained and perhaps even sued.
Enter CCLI, and subsequently other church copyright organisations (CCO’s). For a modest annual fee, you don’t need to deal with the administrative and financial nightmare of copyright compliance–for printed copies. Instead, the CCO negotiate’s with copyright owners for the right to represent them.
The best marketed CCO is, CCLI a privately owned company founded in the US in 1988, which focusses on the needs of the evangelical/pentecostal/praise-and-worship type churches. But there are others, eg Word of Life in Australisia, which focus on the needs of the more liturgical/traditional churches, and OneLicence which is an off-shoot of GIA Publiciations.
Churches buy licences from CCO’s that which allow projection of words/notation, and photocopying music (provided a minimum number of copies have been purchased). Typically one of the conditions is a return saying which song-words etc were displayed, how often and/or how many people were there, and these returns are used to calculate payments to composers and publishers.
However, there are still some things that some churches do that aren’t covered by most of the common licences, including CCLI. Basically, if your church does anything more than just singing the songs on Sunday, you’ll need additional licenses: mechanical licenses if your services are recorded on tape or CD (though CCLI covers distribution of these, up to 115% of your church’s license size class), synchronization licenses if you produce a video that contains a copyrighted song, and let’s not even go into the horrific issues if your music makes its way onto the Internet–some companies like Word Music don’t allow their music online at all.
Some other miscellaneous notes about restrictions of the licences:
- You may not alter the lyrics of a song or the tune (melody or harmony)
- You may not make arrangements of the music (even if no published version exists, or if the publication is out of print.
- Rehearsal tapes, CDs etc are not covered by CCLI and therefore require a mechanical license
) But it does mean that if a publisher wants to make an example of someone, they’re more likely to pick on some other church.