Worship and Copyright Laws

With all of the new technology available to churches and new licensing products out there, I wanted to make sure that we all understand how copyright laws affect today's worship ministries. There are many misconceptions as to what we can and can't do with music and recordings, as well as displaying lyrics and showing video clips. The purpose of this article is to address some of those misconceptions and point you to some valuable resources that help lift the burden of being "legal".

Let's start by looking at how copyright laws began. The copyright laws that are in place today come from an English law passed in 1710 called the Statute of Anne. After the American Revolution, early states passed laws similar to this statute and, when the Constitution was drafted, copyright protection was written into it in Article 1, Section 8 which provided protection for intellectual property. The first actual copyright law was enacted in 1790 and went through several revisions, the final revision being drafted in 1909. Rapid development in technology, particularly in the area of broadcast communications, made it clear that the current law was inadequate and needed to be revised. In 1955 Congress made funds available for research and, after many years of studies and debates, The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2512 in 1967. Again, due to technology that seemed to be changing at the speed of sound, copyright laws seemed inadequate and in February, 1976 the Copyright Act of 1976 passed with a vote of 97-0. This law, along with a few addendum, is the basis on which copyrights are issued and upheld today.

Copyrights are used to protect property, which are in most cases, considered to be intellectual. When a songwriter creates a musical masterpiece, he or she has provided a work of art based on his/her talent and expertise. Often times, the final product will also contain talent and expertise of other individuals, but the initial idea came from the writer who is, in most cases, the copyright owner. The only right we are given to a published work of art is to view or listen to it, whichever the case may be. Anything beyond that, unless explicitly provided by the author, is a copyright violation.

So how does this affect our worship ministry? I'm glad you asked, read on. The church that I attend incorporates contemporary, high energy worship music into its services. The process begins with our worship leader purchasing and listening to new contemporary worship music and choosing songs that fit our church's style of worship and are theologically sound. Once he has determined set lists for a particular week, he distributes the recordings of the music via an online worship planning site. The musicians are notified via email when the recordings are available and will listen or download the files for listening and practicing prior to rehearsal. The band rehearses, then performs the music live for our Sunday services.

The tech team enters the lyrics of each song into the presentation software for displaying on the video projection screens. Though my church doesn't do this, some churches print the lyrics in the weekly bulletin. Additionally, the services are recorded for CD distribution and/or streamed live over the Internet. It doesn't take an engineering degree to see that there is quite a bit of potential for copyright infringement.

Okay, so let's break it down to see what types of licenses we need and how we can make sure we are covered. First, as the worship leader looks for new music, there are literally thousands of free and low cost resources to choose from. YouTube is probably the most popular free site online for listening to music by original artists. There are other subscription based services, such as Rhapsody and Napster that allow you to download as much music as you want for a low monthly cost. The iTunes store offers individual song purchases or the entire CD. These practices do not violate any copyright laws, however if you choose a song to use in your service, you must legally own the song in order to distribute that song. You must obtain a "mechanical license" and a "master recording license" and pay fees and royalties for the number of songs you need to distribute.

Next, in order to display or print lyrics of any copyrighted songs, you have to get permission. Remember that music is intellectual property and the only right we have been granted to that music is to listen. If the service is recorded or streamed, you will need a "video sync license" so as not to be in violation of copyright statutes. Quite often, movie clips are used in services, which opens up a whole new area for consideration.

If you are still reading at this point, you must feel pretty overwhelmed. Staying legal in our worship can be a daunting task, but it is imperative that we do! Fortunately, there are some very good resources for helping us do just that.

CCLI, Christian Copyright Licensing International, is a private company established in 1988 to help churches stay legal in most, if not all of these areas. They offer licensing packages that cover music, lyrics, video clips, streaming, and rehearsals and all of their licensing programs are based on congregation size and cover most of the top worship songs used in today's contemporary worship services. They also provide database access to their song library which is built into the more popular presentation software packages like Easy Worship and ProPresenter. They also provide video and streaming licensing as well.

Copyright Solver is another resource that provides licensing solutions for streaming, performing, and distribution.

Copyright issues should not be taken lightly. Our communities look to us to be above reproach in everything we do and we must comply. If you are interested in reading more about the Copyright laws in place at present, go to http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ for a complete version of the existing Copyright Law.

Presonus StudioLive Review

We recently had the opportunity to install a Presonus StudioLive console and were pleasantly surprised at the capabilities of this digital board. We also had an opportunity to use the console to record some choir tracks and were very impressed with the results. With an easy to use layout and robust features, such as built-in dynamics and effects, this mixer is on par with others costing twice as much.

It has a small footprint with lots of features, which is why we highly recommend this digital mixer for churches that only require a few inputs, but need quality sound. The mixer feels more like an analog board with digital features.

The board was easy to set up and use right out of the box. Having never used this console, I had no trouble locating the controls I needed to get audio running quickly. The gain control is located at the top of each channel, much like you would expect on an analog board which is part of the reason this mixer feels so much like an analog console. Large assignment buttons next to the LED strips determine how the encoders located under the LED's will function. The encoders are channel specific and, since they are located just above the faders, adjusting aux and effects sends is quick and easy. Without an assignment, the encoders act as equalizer and dynamic controls for the selected channel or graphic equalizer bands for the main outputs, which is where the digital side gets a bit confusing.

The dynamics and equalizer section is clearly labeled and separated by light and dark colored sections. The encoders set parameters and buttons below the encoders turn the feature on or off and are well lit indicating that the feature is engaged. The equalizer is a three-band, semi-parametric with shelving options on the highs and lows and a "HI-Q" option for the mids. The equalizer sections can be turned on or off individually, though I'm not sure if that's really an advantage. My preference would be to turn the entire equalizer on or off, but that's just my opinion.

Below the equalizer and dynamics sections is the pan adjustment that includes a LED indicator, which I think is a nice feature. Next to the pan control are the phase shift and phantom power buttons. These buttons are easy to find and are well lit when activated, making it easy to quickly determine if phantom power is engaged. Moving to the right, the next set of buttons allow copying, saving, and loading channel strips to and from memory. Next to these buttons is a LED display that indicates which channel is selected, a nice feature.

Moving down the board towards the faders, two sets of buttons act as channel selection and mute/solo/firewire assignments which are dictated by a set of buttons located on the left side of the board. These buttons are somewhat self explanatory, except that the firewire assignment button is for a firewire return and does not need to be engaged for recording.

The faders on this console are 60mm faders which feel small if you are used to a larger analog board with 100mm faders. Otherwise, they work well with the layout and size of the mixer. On the left side of the faders are buttons that assign metering functionality to the LED section. The meter choices are input, output, gain reduction, and fader locator.

An information LCD screen is located at the top of the master section, followed by assignment and edit buttons and an encoder. As you would expect, this is where you will find system functions, scene memory, and effects and channel libraries. It's small and it's not a touch screen, but it is adequate for the purpose it serves. The system pages are very basic, compared to other digital consoles, offering adjustments for LCD contrast, pre/post assignments for aux sends, sample rate for firewire, MIDI setup, and console locking features. Press the FX button and you will be taken to the settings for the two onboard effects engines. I found these settings easy to navigate and was able to quickly find a reverb and delay that could be customized to my satisfaction. Scene memory is also easy to set up and use, though naming is a bit frustrating using the encoder wheel. Directly below the LCD section are the FX, talkback, solo, and phones/monitor send and assignment controls.

As I stated earlier, we had the opportunity to use this console as both a recording and a live mix board and were very pleased on both occasions. I connected the console to my MacBook Pro via the provided firewire cable and had no issues configuring either Garageband or SoundTrack Pro to record all 16 channels. I have to confess at this point that I did not use the supplied software, but I have no doubt that the quality is equally as good. Another nice recording feature is that the recorded tracks can be played back through the mixer with full channel control for mix-down.

If I had to find something that I did not like about this board, it would be tough, but not impossible. My biggest gripe would have to be with the LCD screen. It is too small to provide graphical information about any of the equalizer or dynamic features of the board. Yes, the LED's do provide level information, but I would consider this is an entry level console, aimed at inexperienced users and the ability to actually see the EQ curve would be a huge advantage.

All things considered, I really like this digital mixer. The ability to bridge two consoles together and simultaneously mix live and record 32 channels for under $4,000 is quite an accomplishment for Presonus. The clear audio and built-in processing capabilities make this mixer worthy of serious consideration!

Let me know what you think!