Copyright Can of Worms

The increased level of interest in our recordings of worship services at BMPCNC caused me just a little bit angst. When we were making 3 cassette tapes of our worship for shut-in members, I wasn't too concerned. But with the advent of digital recording, and the advent of our new preacher interest in CD recordings of our worship services has sky-rocketed. We continued to make 3 CDs for our shut-ins, but we had many requests for recordings for folks absent from worship for any number of reasons, and for extended family members and similar requests. And the increase got me nervous.

I did some investigating, using a book I've had for some time, "The Church Guide to Copyright Law" by attorney and CPA Richard R. Hammar, published by Christian Ministry Resources in 1990. I had for years believed that limited distribution of free recordings to shut-in members of a church was permitted under the broad category of "fair use" of copyrighted material. I've learned that I was wrong. Granted, these days some publishers give such permission with the purchase of music (so indicated by a note to that effect somewhere on the music), but not everyone is doing that, and it absolutely does not appear on older pieces of music.

So here's the gist: BMPCNC will now distribute to our shut-ins, and anyone else interested, only the Bible readings and the sermon from worship. Our dissemination of this same material on the Internet via our website will not be altered.

Now, I'll share some further detail on the matter. Churches that wish to distribute recordings of worship have several options. (These are related on page 114 of the book cited above.) They can get advance permission from all the copyright holders of material that will be in a worship service for the material to be included in the service-recording. They can avoid the use of any copyrighted material. They can simply record only the non-protected portions of the service. They might even choose to "splice in" public domain music in place of the copyrighted material. A church may choose to do nothing (which is what BMPCNC has been doing for some time). A church may finally enter into blanket license agreements with copyright holders, along the lines of a "compulsory license" (a specific means of gaining permission after the fact for utilizing copyright material).

In a typical worship service there may be as many as a dozen copyright musical and liturgical elements, which could mean as many as 12 publishers to deal with for a single service, plus 12 royalty payments according to those various publishers' policies. So as you can see either securing permission beforehand or afterward would entail a vast amount of new work for someone; and that someone would have to have very specialized knowledge of the law and the publishers of church music.

So, why not just continue to "do nothing?" Cases of legal enforcement of the law have escalated in recent history. Well-publicized cases that involved Nabster and similar Internet music sites got our attention a few years ago; the case this year of a graduate student in Boston is highly indicative (see our post on that case). A negative judgment against the church for mechanical reproduction of worship services would cripple the church's ministry to the point of forcing closure, most likely. As the closetest thing we have to an expert on these matters, I see it as my responsibility to help keep us in compliance with the law, and not simply let us continue to do nothing,

Copyright law deals with three broad areas of concern: print reproduction, mechanical reproduction (recordings), and broadcast reproduction (via television, radio or Internet). The good news is that our current standards for print and broadcast reproduction are safely within compliance with the law.

The sad news is that we will have to curtail our mechanical reproduction program in order to continue to safely operate as a church here in the valley.

Some will ask: "what about church's that broadcast over television or radio?" A specific case I can use as an example is a church whose service is recorded by a local television station, aired by the station, and then placed on the station's website. A large corporation like a television or radio station will have blanket licenses for copyright materials they air with all of the three largest copyright agencies, SESAC, BMI and ASCAP. These licenses are very expensive, however, and not within the scope of our budget provisions (to date). We currently hold blanket licenses for print materials (two of them) and pay about $400 per year. Without going into specifics (which I don't have), gaining mechanical reproduction licenses (it would probably entail gaining all three) could easily quadruple that amount. If this aspect of our ministry proves important enough to us, we may wish to consider exploring getting our own mechanical reproductions licenses for our worship services. But we're not there yet, I don't think. And we would still have the issue of reporting usage (a vast amount of paperwork).

Please post a comment if you want to know more or have specific questions.