Rebroadcasting Music

[guydds]

I am new to some of the copyright laws. Our church has a CCLI license to download our chord charts. We broadcast our services over the web. Is it okay to broadcast the music? None of it is original.

[andrewc2]

As far as I understand in order to broadcast the worship session of your service you would need either CCLI's streaming license - http://www.churchstreaminglicense.com/ or the WORSHIPcast license - http://www.copyrightsolver.com/services/worshipcast

CopyrightSolver posted the following comparison - WORSHIPcast vs CCLI streaming license

[CopyrightSolver]

Thanks for the mention, Andrew.

Let me provide a little more context to what Andrew has already provided. There is a religious service exemption in US copyright law that allows churches to perform live or recorded music during religious services without having to pay any royalties. That exemption does not apply to re-transmission of worship services by TV, radio or internet. When it worship services are broadcast over TV or radio, those performances are covered by the licenses that the TV and radio stations have with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Churches are responsible for getting licensing for their transmissions on the web. As Andrew mentioned, there are two great options for you to choose from and I encourage you to read the review of them posted above.

Please let me know if I can answer any follow up questions.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by CopyrightSolver

Let me provide a little more context to what Andrew has already provided. There is a religious service exemption in US copyright law that allows churches to perform live or recorded music during religious services without having to pay any royalties. That exemption does not apply to re-transmission of worship services by TV, radio or internet.

And just to avoid some common confusion, the exemption noted is specifically related to religious services and not to churches or worship facilities, it is tied to the activity and not the venue. And the exemption includes the performance of copyrighted recorded music but not the recording of live or recorded copyrighted music performances.

[guydds]

Thank you.

[CopyrightSolver]

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

And just to avoid some common confusion, the exemption noted is specifically related to religious services and not to churches or worship facilities, it is tied to the activity and not the venue.

The PERFORMmusic license covers performances of live and prerecorded music outside of religious services. There is a white paper on that page that explains the religious service exemption as it applies to performances.

[andrewc2]

I've been wondering something, If religious services are exempt then do churches not need a CCLI license?

[CopyrightSolver]

Originally Posted by andrewc2

I've been wondering something, If religious services are exempt then do churches not need a CCLI license?

Good question. While the CCLI license has nothing to do with performing rights, it does provide the right to reproduce lyrics for congregational singing.

You can get a breakdown on what coverage is provided by the various blanket licenses here.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by andrewc2

I've been wondering something, If religious services are exempt then do churches not need a CCLI license?

It can be very confusing as there are different rights involved with sheet music, performances (live or playback), recording and broadcast/distribution and potentially other rights associated with using copyrighted music in other creative works (e.g. incorporating an existing song into a video or presentation). I believe that the religious service exemption relates only to the performance rights aspect, all other copyright laws still apply.

Originally Posted by CopyrightSolver

The PERFORMmusic license covers performances of live and prerecorded music outside of religious services. There is a white paper on that page that explains the religious service exemption as it applies to performances.

Since you brought up that particular licensing package, perhaps you can explain some things that I can't find being addressed in the information on the related web site.

One specific example that came up in another forum is DJs playing at wedding receptions or special events. They are going to bring their own libraries of music and probably, within some agreed upon guidelines, select which songs to play, so can one be sure that anything they might play is covered by the license? Is everything in the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC catalogs covered?

Say your service averages 150 people but you have a wedding every weekend with 50 or so attending and an event once a month with around 300 attendees. Is the 'attendance' for licensing 122 (the average attendees per event), 150 (the average attendees per service), 200 (the attendees per service and wedding), 275 (the total average attendees per week), 500 (the highest total for any one week) or some other number? And should licensing be based on average/estimated attendees or the rated capacity of the venue?

A license can cover multiple venues but does it cover multiple simultaneous uses or where that is a possibility would you have to obtain licensing for each potential concurrent use? Think satellite churches that may have bands at each venue that may perform some of the same songs during concurrent services. Or a church with multiple ministries that may be operating at the same time.

[CopyrightSolver]

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

It can be very confusing as there are different rights involved with sheet music, performances (live or playback), recording and broadcast/distribution and potentially other rights associated with using copyrighted music in other creative works (e.g. incorporating an existing song into a video or presentation). I believe that the religious service exemption relates only to the performance rights aspect, all other copyright laws still apply.

The religious service exemption applies to the performance of live music, recorded music and the display of images (but not video or film).

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

Since you brought up that particular licensing package, perhaps you can explain some things that I can't find being addressed in the information on the related web site.

One specific example that came up in another forum is DJs playing at wedding receptions or special events. They are going to bring their own libraries of music and probably, within some agreed upon guidelines, select which songs to play, so can one be sure that anything they might play is covered by the license? Is everything in the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC catalogs covered?

Every song for which a song owner wants to be paid is registered with those three PROs. Their catalog runs over 16,000,000 songs and they add tens of thousands of songwriters every month. Most importantly these three PROs are the agencies that enforce these requirements.

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

Say your service averages 150 people but you have a wedding every weekend with 50 or so attending and an event once a month with around 300 attendees. Is the 'attendance' for licensing 122 (the average attendees per event), 150 (the average attendees per service), 200 (the attendees per service and wedding), 275 (the total average attendees per week), 500 (the highest total for any one week) or some other number? And should licensing be based on average/estimated attendees or the rated capacity of the venue?

The metric used for the PERFORMmusic license is the average number of attendees for all worship services per week, so in your example, the number would be 275.

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

A license can cover multiple venues but does it cover multiple simultaneous uses or where that is a possibility would you have to obtain licensing for each potential concurrent use? Think satellite churches that may have bands at each venue that may perform some of the same songs during concurrent services. Or a church with multiple ministries that may be operating at the same time.

The PERFORMmusic covers concurrent uses at multiple campuses. It is a very broad license.

[andrewc2]

Originally Posted by CopyrightSolver

Good question. While the CCLI license has nothing to do with performing rights, it does provide the right to reproduce lyrics for congregational singing.

You can get a breakdown on what coverage is provided by the various blanket licenses here.

Ah alright, that makes senses, so CCLI is the right to show the lyrics to congregation. Thanks for making sense of all this, good to have a large blanket topic that covers all the questions on this matter

[Brad Weber]

Thanks for the response!

Originally Posted by CopyrightSolver

The religious service exemption applies to the performance of live music, recorded music and the display of images (but not video or film).

Purely semantics, but just so it is not misunderstood, while anything you record would also be 'recorded music', what is addressed in the exemption is the playback of pre-recorded music and not the recording of music.

Originally Posted by CopyrightSolver

Every song for which a song owner wants to be paid is registered with those three PROs. Their catalog runs over 16,000,000 songs and they add tens of thousands of songwriters every month. Most importantly these three PROs are the agencies that enforce these requirements.

What I was getting at is that the site you linked says "The PERFORMmusic church performance license allows you to play or perform over 16,000,0000 Christian and secular songs. All genres are covered, from Contemporary Christian and Gospel to Rock, Country, Children’s music and much more." However, I could not find anything specifically identifying any reference to the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC catalogs or what music is/is not covered by a PERFORMmusic license. From my personal perspective, I'd much rather be able to tell a church that with a CCS PERFORMmusic license they can play anything from any of the three major licensing catalogs than to have to tell them that they can play 16,000,000 songs but I don't know what that does or does not include. So put simply, are the full ASCAP, BMI and SESAC catalogs covered in the PERFORMmusic and WORSHIPcast licenses and is there some reason this can't be directly stated?