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Worship Tools Can Conflict With Copyright Law

By Laura Brown

Technology has allowed churches to enhance their worship services through movie clips, PowerPoint presentations, computer graphics, sound bites, and more. At the same time, it has ushered in a new set of ethical issues for church leaders.

Why? Many churches don’t know they could be breaking the law when they show movie clips during a Sunday sermon or project song lyrics onto a screen. That’s because copyright law makes it illegal to use someone else’s creative work without permission, even for a good cause.

Thankfully, resources have been developed to help churches acknowledge the authors of the artistic works they use to glorify God.

What is copyright?

Copyright law is designed to protect people who produce original literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, or other works. It covers nearly everything that can be seen, heard or touched: books, CDs, movies, photographs, plays, and more.

The law gives original authors the exclusive right to:

• Copy, print or reprint the work
• Perform it publicly
• Sell or distribute it
• Revise it, arrange it, or transform it
• Record it

The right belongs to the person who created it, not anyone who has access to it. U.S. law no longer requires a copyrighted work to bear a copyright notice. Just because a work doesn’t include a copyright notice, don’t assume that it can be displayed or copied without permission.

Someone who infringes upon a creator’s rights can be fined from $500 to $20,000 per infringed work, even if the violation was unintentional. If an organization knowingly breaks the law, an additional $100,000 penalty can be added.

The way to avoid infringing on a creator’s rights is to obtain permission first. Some authors grant permission freely. Others may charge a fee or may refuse to let you use their work at all. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

Aren’t There Exceptions?

There are exceptions to every rule, including copyright law. However, most are narrow in scope and subject to interpretation. Therefore, it’s best to assume that a work is always copyright protected.

The most common exception is the fair use doctrine. It allows portions of copyrighted material to be reproduced without an author’s permission for certain “fair” purposes, such as teaching, research, news reporting, criticism, and comment.

This is a vague and often tricky exception to the law.  Copyright law gives no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may be safely copied without permission. In a classic copyright case, a court once ruled that an organization violated copyright law by showing just nine seconds of a movie. That’s because the clip showed the crux of the entire movie (a man being shot from a cannon). In many cases, the use of a movie clip in the context of a sermon illustration might qualify as “fair use,” but the decision must be made on a case-by-case basis.

If a court rules that you used too much of the copyrighted work or that your use of the work harms the owner’s ability to earn income from it, fair use will not apply. Because there are no guidelines for how much of a protected work can be copied or for determining the effect of copying on a work’s value, your organization should use extreme care when using fair use as a defense for copying protected works. Even if you believe that a use is “fair,” a court may disagree.

What About Movies?

Some churches believe it’s okay to show a full-length motion picture to its members because the church has paid to rent or buy that movie. However, copyright law stipulates that videos are to be shown in private homes to close family and friends. They may be shown in other settings only with the producer’s permission. When your church shows a movie to 3,000, 300, or 30 people, it’s acting more like a movie theater than a ministry. As far as showing short clips from a movie, experts disagree on how much is too much. Some attorneys believe a video excerpt may qualify as “fair use;” others believe any public performance of a motion picture is automatically a copyright violation.

How Can Churches Comply?

The best way to comply with copyright law is to use no photograph, song, film, or computer-generated image without the author’s permission. That’s easier said than done, as many church leaders have discovered.

“It takes a lot of work and a lot of money, but if you want to be truly legal, that’s the way to go,” said Joe Collins, multimedia director of Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

There are several options churches can pursue, all with their pros and cons.

1. Use Only Public Domain Works. Certain works fall into a category known as public domain and are not protected by copyright. When the copyright for a work expires, that work enters the public domain. Today, most copyrights expire 70 years after an author’s death. That’s a long time to wait for the latest Stephen Curtis Chapman song. Authors or photographers can also intentionally grant their work to the public domain. To be safe, however, never assume anything is in the public domain without adequate proof. Just because you can download it from the Internet doesn’t mean you can use it.
2. Use Only Hymnals. Some churches still rely primarily on hymnals for congregational singing. As long as you buy enough books for your membership and don’t reproduce the songs in audio, print or video forms, you don’t need to worry about complying with copyright law. You’re covered.
3. Use Royalty-Free Works. Some authors, photographers, artists, and musicians offer their works on a royalty-free basis. This usually involves paying a one-time fee in exchange for the use of their work without having to pay royalty fees each time you use the work. Royalty-free photograph and clip art Web sites are becoming increasingly common. You can also buy CD-ROMs or books containing royalty-free art. These give your church a wide range of songs and images to choose from, although you have to pay a fee for them.
4. Obtain permission from copyright owners.You may be able to locate the copyright owner using the information listed on the copyrighted material. If there is no copyright information listed, contact the publisher directly, since that organization may be the copyright owner. You may also search the records of the U.S. Copyright Office (www.loc.gov/copyright). Although you may obtain permission to use a work without paying a royalty, the process can be time-consuming. Expect to wait four to six weeks for a response. If you don’t have the time or manpower to do the research yourself, you can hire someone to do it for you. Church Copyright Administration (www.churchca.com) will research song or movie copyright owner information, contact all authorized publishers and administrators, negotiate royalty rates, and obtain licenses on your behalf.
5. Buy a blanket license. Blanket licenses allow the use of specific copyrighted work for certain purposes while the license is in effect. The licenses allow churches to use thousands of copyrighted songs and motion pictures, but they have limits. For example, a license that grants a church permission to perform copyrighted songs during a regular worship service doesn’t give it permission to perform songs in other settings, such as concerts or outreach events. Royalties from license fees are distributed to the authors and publishers of the works based on surveys churches complete.
   

There are four main licensing organizations:

Christian Copyright Licensing Inc. (www.ccli.com): A CCLI license allows churches to use more than 150,000 copyrighted songs during their regular worship services. It also allows churches to:

• Print songs in bulletins, programs and song sheets
• Make overhead transparencies and slides
• Enter songs in a computer to project them onto a screen
• Record church worship services on video and audiotape, provided you don’t use accompaniment tracks.

It does not allow churches to:

• Photocopy or duplicate octavos, cantatas, musicals, handbell music, keyboard arrangements, vocal scores, orchestrations or other instrumental works.
• Translate songs from English into another language.
• Rent, sell, or lend copies made under the license to other churches or groups.
• Assign or transfer the license to another church or group without CCLI’s approval.
• Make rehearsal tracks from copyrighted CDs.
• Broadcast worship services over the Internet.

Christian Video Licensing Inc. (www.cvli.org): A CVLI license allows churches to show videos from more than 40 studios, including major Hollywood studios and most Christian video producers. Licensed churches may use video clips to illustrate sermon points and show videos and DVDs in Sunday school classes and youth meetings.

BMI (www.bmi.com/licensing/webcaster): A BMI license allows organizations to publicly perform musical works. The organization represents approximately 300,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The company collects license fees on behalf of those creators. “Public performances” include radio airplay, broadcast and cable television carriage, Internet and live and recorded performances.

ASCAP (www.ascap.com/weblicense): An ASCAP license gives you permission to perform any of the works in its repertory. It has a searchable database of its millions of works, along with writer, publisher and recording artist information. It collects license fees and distributes royalties to the creative artists it represents.

Although there are a few limited exceptions to copyright protection, your church or ministry should always investigate the copyright status of any literary, musical, dramatic, or audiovisual works before using them. Contrary to popular belief, simply giving credit to the creator of copyrighted works used in a bulletin or program is no defense against charges of copyright infringement.

Published in Church Executive magazine, October 2004.
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