WORSHIPcast vs CCLI streaming license

[CopyrightSolver]

CCLI recently announced the launch of their church streaming license. There have been a lot of questions about how this license compares to CCS’s WORSHIPcast license. Let’s take a look.

Price
First, let’s look at price. The WORSHIPcast license costs $500 for churches with congregations of 500 people or less and $925 for everyone else. The CCLI license has far more tiers and starts at $50 for churches with congregations of less than 25 and goes up to $1,500. For most churches there, will be a difference in price of a few hundred dollars. In some cases, the WORSHIPcast license is less expensive than the CCLI license.

Scorecard: CCLI is slightly less expensive for most churches, but not all.

Catalog
The next thing to evaluate is the catalogs covered by the respective licenses. CCLI does not clearly state what songs are covered, but the catalog is based on CCLI’s catalog of 200,000 Christian songs. The CCLI catalog may be smaller than these 200,000 songs, but it is definitely not any bigger than that. The WORSHIPcast license covers more than 16 million songs from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC and represent Christan and secular songs from all genres.
What is the impact of the catalog size? Well, if the song that you want to use is not in the catalog, you can’t webcast it without getting additional licensing from the song’s owner. Getting this additional permission can take weeks and would cost additional money. Scrimping on catalog size will save a small amount of money upfront, but it will also limit what songs you can include in your webcast or require you to spend additional time and money to use songs that are not in the catalog.

Scorecard: The WORSHIPcast catalog is 80 times the size of the CCLI catalog, which is also limited only to Christian music.

Uses
The two licenses are different in what they allow the licensee to do. The CCLI license allows podcasting and streaming, but is limited only to worship services. The WORSHIPcast license does not cover podcasting, but it does cover any of your performances that you wish to webcast, including concerts and produced videos.

Scorecard: CCLI allows podcasting but is limited to services. WORSHIPcast does not cover podcasting but allows far more uses.

Summary
Considering where we were just a few years ago, the Christian community is blessed to have two great options for webcasting. The CCLI license is cheaper, but provides far less coverage and may lead to additional licensing expense. The WORSHIPcast license is slightly more expensive but covers much, much more. If you are a small church with extremely limited funds, the CCLI license is a great fit for you. If your church wants to have a lot more flexibilty in creating their set lists and in webcasting their performances, WORSHIPcast is the better choice.