To quote a Martina McBride song, Wrong Again.
Some days I wonder why we (the music industry) keep fighting the fight. As soon as you shut down a Napster, dozens more mom-and-pop shops pop up all over the Internet. We put out one fire and think we can take a breath of relief only to see more brush fires shooting up all around the fringe.
Yet, like firefighters, we must fight off the exhaustion, pick up our gear, and get back in the fire.
Why?
Because we believe in what we do.
I am tired of getting flamed and dissed when I try to tactfully educate people when I come across copyright infringement in their business or their website or their church choir. Sadly, the Church - the people, that is - are the most difficult to deal with. My company administers copyrights for 4 of the 5 major Christian publishers. You would think our database of churches and faith-based organizations would be massive, but it's really not.
My problem is not so much with the people who are simply ignorant of the copyright laws or are misled by sites which tell them "this is not illegal" or "this is legal under fair use. While people should look into these things more closely, they are generally operating under the assumption that they have been told the truth. Many churches have a CCLI license and think they are covered for all songs for all uses. While I have lived and breathed the value of intellectual property for years, the average consumer simply needs to be educated in an area in which they are not greatly knowledgeable.
My real beef is with those who a) blatantly infringe copyrights and b) are outraged by the thought of having to pay to use something that does not belong to them.
If we had a nickel for every time we heard "but I'm with a non-profit/church/religious organization" or "but we're doing the work of the Lord!" Aren't we, as Christians, doing the work of the Lord in whatever line of work we're in if we're truly following in His steps?
So are you a Christian accountant? Do you provide your services for free? How about a Christian school teacher? Shouldn't you be educating children without expecting compensation from the school district? A Christian bank president - why are you not doling out the money from your vaults?
The line I personally use - would you walk into Target/Walmart/Borders, etc. and take a cd/bottle of shampoo/box of crackers off the shelf and walk out of the store without paying for it? No? That's stealing, you say?
My point, precisely.
Intellectual property seems such a hard concept for people to grasp, but it really isn't. A song is a thing. It exists. They are comprised of words and music which someone, somewhere, at some point in time created. It has inherent value. Along comes an artist who records this song. Vocalists, band members, engineers, producers, assistants, the intern who go-fers the Starbucks..all have invested a piece of themselves in this second copyright. But it doesn't stop there. There are endless employees sitting behind desks, behind the scenes, that are all a piece of each project, as well...all the way down to we lowlies who license the works for others to use and crunch the final numbers in the end.
So many people think - incorrectly - that they are operating legally. Adoption/graduation/wedding videos - it is not legal to set your video/pictures to music without a license. It does not matter if you own the cd with the song or have downloaded it from iTunes. Synchronizing music and visual is an entirely different work.
Embedding music players in your blogs/websites - again, it does not matter if you legally downloaded or purchased the songs. You can not stream music without a license. (FYI, in the Christian music world, at least, most record labels will not allow use of their music on websites not owned or controlled by them.)
Song lyrics - I'm sorry, but the same applies. (Many publishers might allow free use for an individual blog, but you must request permission.) Photocopies for your church choir? Video recordings of Christmas programs? Rehearsal cds for kids choir, adult choir, worship team? All infringe copyright law without music licensing.
So I beg - please, please, PLEASE educate yourself on copyright issues. If you can surf the Web, you can find information on copyright law. Check out RIAA (Recording Industry of America), Music Services, The United States Copyright Office, or CCLI (Church Copyright License International).
If you truly want to do the work of the Lord, please do it as unto the Lord. Remember, the writers and performers of the praise & worship songs you love to listen to - the songs you love to sing on Sunday morning and the rest of the week - those people are doing the work of the Lord, too. But if they can't make a living, they won't be able to continue to write and share words and music that help draw us all closer in our own relationships with God.** (It also puts people like me out of work...and I've been there before.)
Please, let us all start acting like the Church should. Legalism does not belong there, but legality does.
*Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
**Did you know...according to the current statutory rate for mechanical licenses, a song only earns 9.1 cents per sale/use? This must be split between publishers and songwriters. Each sale is important!
8 comments:
You know, I've been noticing more and more at the bottom of the first page of the new anthems we've been looking at in choir, a line that says a CCLI license DOES NOT cover copying it. But does that include publishing the lyrics in the bulletin for the congregation to follow along with it? And at my church, everything you wrote about is a much greater issue . . . we're televised. And each service is saved to DVD for our homebound ministry/the church library.
As to people imbedding music players on their blogs/websites--I HATE THOSE! They always take forever to load the page, and I'm usually listening to my own (legally purchased) music anyway.
We'll miss you in May. Hopefully the June or July dates will match up with an "off" weekend for you.
Kaye,
Printing worship songs/hymns in the bulletin or projected for the congregation to sing is covered by CCLI, but if the choir is performing a song which the congregation is not singing, but you want to print the lyrics, that is not covered. That would require a print license. I am glad to hear the new print stuff is carrying that notice! I tried to tell a choir director at church in the past that we couldn't make rehearsal cds without licenses and was told I was wrong. Umm...no, I'm not. =)
Thanks for being concerned! And hopefully I'll catch the MTCWers this summer!
I'm confused/looking for clarity on the sharing-lyrics thing.
I always understood that writing out the lyrics for your blog was like sharing a poem:
Okay w/ attribution. Were you saying that's not true, or requiring a case-by-case research?
And what about trying to track down an "old" song?
I was ready to upload a 20+ year-old song I'd sung myself, because I couldn't find a recording anywhere or even a composer.
I only didn't b/c I'm not yet technically savvy enough and DH was busy.
Are their restrictions on singing it myself, like that, to post on my own blog?
"Anonymous David" - your post has been removed as I do not wish to have incomplete information broadcast on my blog. While I appreciate your "extensive research," unless you have credentials you would like to share, please do not continue to spread only part of the facts.
Copies of cds are allowed for non-commercial, personal use. If you have a cd and want to make a copy to listen to in your car and another one to keep at your office, knock yourself out. But once you create a copy and pass it on to another person, you are crossing into infringement. I suggest again that you visit http://www.musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html and the RIAA's website. I do, in fact, work for one of the companies you listed, and work with this on a daily basis.
Distributing copies takes money from the writers. The Digital Recording Act helps get some money to them because of the many making copies who don't pay and aren't caught. But I can tell you from experience - this is a lump sum put on mass statements that then gets pro-rated over everyone's songs, so there is no way for a writer to get his actual share since no one knows exactly which songs are getting copies and shared the most.
Please do the right thing and obtain licenses. It's a small price to pay for the gift of music.
Jill
Amy Jane,
Sharing someone's copyrighted lyrics OR poem is illegal unless you have received permission from a publisher. If something is in the public domain, then you may use it. Otherwise, you must obtain permission.
Even if you sing a song yourself, if you are using a song that is still under copyright, you must obtain permission. You would simply not need a master use license, but you would still need a mechanical for recording purposes. For internet use, you would need an internet streaming license.
Again, we need to look at this not from the perspective of users who need to save money, but from the perspective of the writer who created this song. While you can not see it and touch it like a bottle of shampoo or a tv in a store, it is just as much something that is of value and must be paid for.
Thanks for asking.
You have a beef with churches. I have a beef with the whole idea that someone who writes a song deserves to be rich. An I'm a professional songwriter and musician. Copyright law is totally out of hand. it was intended to encourage creative work, it has gradually been reshaped to do precisely the opposite. Steve Miller sits on his fat butt collecting endlessly from one greatest hits record, and hasn't toured or written anything worth hearing in decades. The silver lining is that more and more churches and local music scenes are turning their backs on the whole corrupt, sordid business, and creating their own material for their own use. Who needs bad songs that you pay for when you can use your own for free? Who needs crappy boring VBS materials for kids when you can make your own, more challenging, more engaging materials for free? The fact is, American culture is suffocating under the business model you espouse. It is simply lame, whiny, self-absorbed, and largely badly written. Look at music in any other part of the world... it's a business, but it's a healthier mix of creative upswelling and mass distribution. The companies in the US have killed the golden goose by relentlessly focusing on ownership rather than nurturance of creation. You own it all fine... too bad it's all crap.
Why do those with a beef fail to give their names? If you wish to voice your opinion, be bold enough to share your name. Songwriters - very few are rich. They make cents on the dollar, which gets split with the publisher. As a professional songwriter, you already know this. If churches create their own music, that's great. But whomever in the church writes the song still owns that work and collects royalties through CCLI, unless they choose to give it away. Let's face it, people have to make a living. Why should songs be free when nothing else is - you give $4 a gallon at the pump, but you should only give a songwriter $.0455 cents per sale? Also, are you suggesting all Christian music is crap? You would include the works of Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, etc? Perhaps you should give us an example of your writing to show us what good music is.
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