Copyright is a difficult issue for many people to understand, so thank you in advance for you attention to legal matters! We make a large part of our living through the music we create, and illegal copying therefore hurts our ability to create more music.
Here are some answers regarding the various ways you might use our music.
If you wish to print words to our songs in your worship order or to project words for group singing in worship, small groups, and events, copyright permission for all of our music is available through OneLicense and CCLI. We ask that you please be diligent in recording all uses of our material, since we only get paid when you report use of our songs! If your congregation does not have OneLicense or CCLI, contact us and we will make other arrangements. We want our music to be accessible, so please feel free to use it in worship when the Spirit moves you and report such use to us after the fact. And if you can’t find a song of ours in the OneLicense or CCLI catalogue, please report it missing through their system, or contact us.
If you want to sing one of our songs as an anthem or performance piece with your choir, soloist, or small ensemble, please feel free to do so, and if possible, make a small payment to us for use of our music, since OneLicense and CCLI only cover copying for congregational singing purposes. In general, we ask for $1 per copy of a song and then it is yours to keep in your permanent music library.
If you wish to record one of our songs in an audio or video format, permission is needed from us. For charitable purposes we typically allow people and organizations to record our songs free of charge. For other purposes, we are happy with standard mechanical royalty rates, so contact us to find out what the current industry rates are.
If you wish to play a song from one of our recordings (mp3, CD, cassette, etc.) during worship, please go ahead and do so (if it is a legal copy!). Playing or performing music during worship (and webcasting your worship services) is exempt from copyright payment under Canadian law.
Here is a list of helpful websites for further exploring copyright laws in Canada:
- OneLicense
http://www.onelicense.net
OneLicense and CCLI administer our copyrights for the purposes of congregational singing. - CCLI
http://www.ccli.com
CCLI and OneLicense administer our copyrights for the purposes of congregational singing. - SOCAN
http://www.socan.ca
SOCAN (The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) administers our copyrights in terms of performance, broadcasting, webcasting, etc. A good source of information regarding what is legal and what isn’t in terms of how you use music. - Notes regarding churches and copyright
http://musicunited.ca/do-music-copyright-questions-make-your-head-spin/
Notes from Bruce Harding and Brenda McLay on copyright questions - United Church of Canada copyright document
http://www.united-church.ca/sites/default/files/handbook_copyright-guide-congregations.pdf
A helpful resource from The United Church of Canada regarding various forms of copyright. - The Creators’ Copyright Coalition
http://www.creatorscopyright.ca
Articles and documents on the evolving nature of copyright in Canada, and responses to changes in copyright law.
As we seek to protect people from COVID-19, we are looking for a way to gather our congregation online. It sounds like music licensing may be the toughest part. We are thinking of streaming the service through a Zoom meeting, possibly pre-recording the music as video clips to include, possibly sharing the lyrics during the meeting, and possibly keeping a recording of the overall service available afterwards. Can you make your music available for some or all of these uses? Or suggest other ways to approach this?
Hi Laura. Sorry for the belated reply – we had some issues in the back end for our website and so we’re just seeing your message now. Hope you’ve sorted out your questions regarding copyright. The simplest way to cover our music plus thousands of other songs is through licenses from http://www.onelicense.net and http://www.ccli.com, both the regular licenses for reproducing lyrics and music and the podcast/streaming licenses which cover putting the songs up online in videos. We’re covered by both licenses. Does this help?
Cheryl and Bruce