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Almost all churches already pay a license fee to display the music on the overhead projector. It's the CCLI number in the corner of the projection. They've been doing this for years.

http://www.ccli.com/

I'd settle for pennies per use for my photos depending on the use. If it's a one-time use in a small-circulation disposable brochure like a church bulletin, I'd even prefer "my share" of an annual flat-rate-for-access scheme like the one CCLI offers for music. The artists get paid but the customers don't get nickled and dimed and dollared to death.

I have some direct experience with blanket music licenses, and they work well.

Churches are big users of music, both traditional and modern. They have to deal with issues of duplication and performance rights for 6-10 songs, every week. The level of effort needed to clear copyrights song-by-song would be impossible.

Ten years ago, the Church Copyright License was created, representing the catalogs of 120 publishers. After one year, they had 9,500 annual licensee holders. They now have over 170,000.

The churches pay a very reasonable annual fee, and get blanket permission to reproduce and perform any songs in the combined catalogs. There are sensible limits on what can be done legally, all basically to the effect of limiting the use to a normal church service.

A random sample of licensees are sent an audit form each year, and they record all the music they've used during the past few months. CCLI also provides software to do the accounting work, so the audit can be completely automated if the church wants.

Payouts to the copyright holders are done in proportion to the usage audits. The payout ratio is very fair. I know several song writers and performers who receive royalty checks, so I know the system really does work.

I've written some hymns myself (New Hymns for Worship), and have looked over the CCLI contracts in detail. They look pretty clean (but IANAL). Although I ultimately decided to publish under a Create Commons license instead, if I had wanted to make money, I would have definitely signed up with CCLI myself.

So, blanket licenses can work. They don't need to be expensive. They let consumers roam freely through whole catalogs of music. It's a good model.

Copyrighted hymns are, believe it or not, a big problem for some churches. Many countries, including a few in northern Europe have a separate royalty collection agency to represent rights-holders of songs likely to be sung in churches. As far as I understand the license covers the printing of words in hymn sheets, OHP or whatever, but not the act of singing itself (which is apparently presumed to be okay --- hymnals and the like are generally published with the understanding that they're going to be used for public singing), and obviously doesn't cover works that are in the public domain (or for which rights have otherwise been acquired).

In Australia, APRA (our equivalent of the RIAA) allows churches a general exemption from paying royalties on performing recorded music during worship services. This means that you can play Britney for your congregational prayer time without worrying about the stormtroopers busting in the windows.

Of course, if my church started to play Britney I'd be praying for the stormtroopers to bust in the windows, but that's another discussion.

Did you even read my post before you answered?

Item one: Nice quote, I couldn't figure out why you didn't provide a link to where you got it from. Then I found it and read the rest of the page. But you don't get the same warm and tingly feeling when you add the next line To copy or project the lyrics: License required So, if they were to print those hymns in a pamphlet, they would be infringing on US copyright law. Sorry, that part is on the bottom, so you might have to RTFA.

Item two: If you go to thier main US site you get this little gem

Item three: (This one is a bonus) If you were to go to The Brethren Press's FAQ they sum it up nicely

Yes. Words, music, and other copyrighted materials are owned properties just as merchandise in a store is. Those who create the copyrighted materials labor to produce them, just as a carpenter might labor to produce a piece of furniture. It is erroneous to think that just because music, curriculum, or books are created for the glory of God, they ought to be free.

Now please, next time spend at least five minutes before pointing out how others are idiots. Especially when it's someones Mom.

Did you even read my post before you answered?

Item one: Nice quote, I couldn't figure out why you didn't provide a link to where you got it from. Then I found it and read the rest of the page. But you don't get the same warm and tingly feeling when you add the next line To copy or project the lyrics: License required So, if they were to print those hymns in a pamphlet, they would be infringing on US copyright law. Sorry, that part is on the bottom, so you might have to RTFA.

Item two: If you go to thier main US site you get this little gem

Item three: (This one is a bonus) If you were to go to The Brethren Press's FAQ they sum it up nicely

Yes. Words, music, and other copyrighted materials are owned properties just as merchandise in a store is. Those who create the copyrighted materials labor to produce them, just as a carpenter might labor to produce a piece of furniture. It is erroneous to think that just because music, curriculum, or books are created for the glory of God, they ought to be free.

Now please, next time spend at least five minutes before pointing out how others are idiots. Especially when it's someones Mom.

A lot of venues (atleast smaller ones like bars) pay what is basically "music insurance". They pay a blanket fee to cover all the royalties that would be owed by any band they have in.

Here's the really ironic thing. So do churches!

It's called the CCLI, and I'll bet you noticed that the domain there ends in .com rather than .org. It gives new, or at least additional, meaning to the concept of fleecing the flock. Not so much the CCLI itself, necessarily, but just the huge amount of non-free worship music. As the CCLI's web site says, they are "serving the church by providing legal, affordable solutions to the copyright issues surrounding congregational worship services".

I guess my main question here is, if you are someone who writes worship songs, don't you want people to worship God more? Wouldn't it even be fair to say that you want people to worship God as much as possible? If so, then why would you require them to pay money to use your song to worship God?

Once again, I think the answer lies with the record labels. The church has bought into the idea of for-profit Christian music so thoroughly and pervasively these days that basically all, or at least a lot of the music they choose comes from for-profit organizations, and that makes it a significant administrative burden to pay off all the copyright holders (like Word Records -- oh look, another .com domain) every week, hence the popularity of things like CCLI. If you want to use songs that the congregation recognizes, you are almost forced into using copyrighted songs. The bottom line (pun intended) is that churches don't pay tax to the government, but they do pay a "tax" to the record labels.

Of course, with churches, it's sold differently. It's sold as music that is "safe for the whole family". Notice that it's not "music that brings you closer to God" or anything like that. We're not talking about music that challenges you to grow spiritually here; we're talking about music that is safe, like a Volvo.

Also, notice that as dumb as it sounds, I'm not making up that "safe for the whole family" thing. I actually left out the "®". It should be written as "Safe for the Whole Family®", and it's the slogan of KLTY, also known as the "#1 Christian Radio Station in America". Because nothing brings glory to God like having higher revenues than everyone else, right? (No, I don't actually know that the #1 claim is based on revenues, but I do know that Salem Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SALM) owns both that radio station, and also this marketing division. So that's at least part of the goal.)

CCLI? What does this have to do with Christian music?

Many professional organizations provide "all you can eat" access to a selected group of dozens or hundreds of journals for an annual fee. They also offer articles a la carte but that gets expensive fast.

CCLI does something similar for contemporary Christian music.

NetFlix and Blockbuster do the same thing on a monthly basis for DVDs, and other organizations do the same for books and other materials.

Paying a monthly rather than annual fee for journal access would be great for the occasional researcher who may need to look up dozens of articles over a few weeks time, but then not read anything for a year or more. Reasonable pricing structures, like 30 articles over 30 days for $xxx, will open research to those who could not otherwise afford it.

Are you sure about that?

In my *ahem* humble opinion, a "limited time" is your lifetime plus the lifetime of any heirs that were alive at the time the work was created.

For practical purposes, we can just set this as the world-record-age for verifiably-longest-lived person, and extend it for works still under copyright as that world record gets higher and higher. Today, that would probably be about 120 years.

For corporations, using the same longest-lived-person also makes sense.

Now, as to works that have no current stakeholders, such as the stuff in the "crap bin," ancient computer software by defunct companies, etc:

After an initial period of time (say, 1/3rd of the copyright lifetime), you have to renew at relatively frequent intervals, say, every 20 years. To renew, you are required to demonstrate a certain number of actual customers since the last renewal. If you forget to renew or can't provide sales figures, the work lapses into the public domain.

Assuming a 120 years, this would put abandoned works in the public domain after 40 years and low-sales-figures work in the public domain after 60.

I doubt such a regime would really increase the amount of things in the public domain. Rather, such a regime would spawn the creation of "copyright holding companies" that buy out the IP of defunt companies and keep the copyrights current. However, to meet the required customer quotas, they'd have to sell the items at reasonable prices, or bundle them into a subscription service, much the same way CCLI bundles church music subscriptions.
This is still A Good Thing, in that works that would otherwise be out of print would be available to those willing to pay, yet the price would be low enough to bring in legally-mandated sales volumes.

> Ascap regularly takes enforcement action against churches for xeroxing sheet music

And Churches have no excuse for breaking copyright laws when a simple and affordable solution exists:

http://www.ccli.com/

Isn't the Christian Copyright Licensing International something like this already? Churches pay an annual fee so that they can freely print and perform worship songs. Rather than reinvent the wheel, why not look to something that's already in place?

A CCLI license grants permission to reproduce the words of songs, and to limited performance and recording rights. It does not grant rights to commercial recordings, AFAIK. That's more ASCAP's territory than RIAA's.

I'm involved in church music. We have two licenses, CCLI and LicenSing. Read the permissions - and the prices here.

A couple of points

• most of those rights under the license are routinely arrogated today, because they're not enforced. If I had a penny for every photocopy that says "used by permission" where the copier didn't have permission, well, it would pay my license budget!
  
• Most people know squat about copyright.
  
• Composers and sheet music publishers routinely get robbed, and know it. They should get a penny or several for every copy.
  
• One reason sheet music costs heaps is that it is pirated.
  

I see DRM making being legal easier, and making composers get the royalties that they're due.

YMMV.

I'm involved in church music. We have two licenses, CCLI and LicenSing. Read the permissions - and the prices here.

A couple of points

• most of those rights under the license are routinely arrogated today, because they're not enforced. If I had a penny for every photocopy that says "used by permission" where the copier didn't have permission, well, it would pay my license budget!
  
• Most people know squat about copyright.
  
• Composers and sheet music publishers routinely get robbed, and know it. They should get a penny or several for every copy.
  
• One reason sheet music costs heaps is that it is pirated.
  

I see DRM making being legal easier, and making composers get the royalties that they're due.

YMMV.