[cc-community] CC licenses and recording rights for music

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Tue Dec 18 15:05:33 EST 2007


On Tuesday 18 December 2007 13:53:47 Denver Gingerich wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2007 12:19 AM, jonathon <jonathon.blake at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 18, 2007 2:07 AM, Denver Gingerich  wrote:
> > >Since the church is not making a public performance of the music
> >
> > (perhaps it is; see below)
> >
> > Over the last decade, the trend is to consider a congregation singing
> > a hymn as a "public performance' for which royalties are to be paid.
>
> I would be interested in hearing a bit more about this, particularly
> examples (such as case law or new licenses of this type that have
> recently become available) where this trend can be seen.
>
> > > I think the assumption I'm making is that a church's performance of a
> > > song does not count as a "public performance".  See the above
> > > discussion.
> >
> > If there is a performance by a group other than the general
> > congregation, then it is a public performance, no ifs, ands, or buts.
> >  (EG: A church choir is a performance.  A soloist is a performance.)
> > The only gray area might be whether or not the congregation, as a
> > whole, singing a hymn is a "public performance".
>
> After doing some more research and finding a page dealing specifically
> with copyright pertaining to churches [1], I see that there are
> specific exemptions in US and Canadian law for public performances "of
> a religious nature" or by a "religious organization" [2] [3].  I think
> this makes the question of whether a church service is considered a
> public performance a moot point.

I wonder why I have never seen the seperation of church and state issue 
brought up in relation to the government granting copyrights to works of a 
religeous nature...
>
> I should have found this stuff earlier; it would have saved us some
> needless discussion here.
>
> > > Licensing companies tend to not address the case where music is sung in
> > > church but no lyrics or music are copied suggesting they don't believe
> > > it is enforceable.
> >
> > Different collecting societies collect royalties for different things.
> > * Harris Fox Agency handles mechanical recording rights;
> > * ASCAP, BMI, SESAC handle performing rights;
> > *  CCLI handles hardcopy copying rights for some Christian groups;
> > This is by no means all of the collecting societies that one might
> > have to deal with.
>
> Depending on what the church is doing, that's right.  The Willow Creek
> Association has an interesting article on which licenses a church
> might need [4].
>
> > Thus far, ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI are making a good business out of
> > forcing clubs to abandon live music.  Once they have completely killed
> > the live music nightclub scene, they will atack churches with a
> > vengance.
>
> Given the exemptions discussed above, I don't think that will happen.

Laws can be changes with enough will. The question is, who has more will...

Also, may groups like to record their services for their "shut ins" and I 
think that is considered a no-no...
>
> > For a church to not have to pay royalties the only material that can
> > be legally used is "public domain".
>
> Or music where artists have given explicit permission for royalty-free
> copying.  There are several sites out there that host such music.
> These include ShareSong.org and 4praise.com.  There are also personal
> sites such as Larry Holder's that have CC-like licenses for hosted
> music (see http://www.larryholdermusic.org/copyright.html).
>
> There are also resources out there for public domain material.  For
> those interested, I would highly suggest checking out the Open Hymnal
> Project (http://openhymnal.org/) or HymnWiki
> (http://www.hymnwiki.org/).
>
> > (For technical legal reasons, none
> > of the CC licenses allow the creator of the work to waive collection
> > of royalty payments.)
>
> Do you mean collection of royalty payments for recordings and public
> performance?

I found that to be an odd statement as well.

But it does give me an opportunity to bring up an issue that I have been 
thinking of lately...

3.f. Webcasting Rights and Statutory Royalties. For the avoidance of doubt, 
where the Work is a sound recording, Licensor waives the exclusive right to 
collect, whether individually or via a performance-rights society (e.g. 
SoundExchange), royalties for the public digital performance (e.g. webcast) 
of the Work, subject to the compulsory license created by 17 USC Section 114 
of the US Copyright Act (or the equivalent in other jurisdictions).

I would like to see this wording modified in such a way that if the party is 
paying a blanket license to my collection agency, I get my share.

Or do I misunderstand how these licenses go?
>
> > ###
> >
> > One possibility would be to find a couple of hymnals that were printed
> > prior to 1920, and reprint them using Lulu.com.   The downside is that
> > they will wholesale for at least US$30.00 per copy, or roughly four
> > times the current retail cost of pew hymnals. :(    [From browsing
> > iUniverse and CafePress, it looks like they retail price would be
> > about the same.]
>
> Or print songs from some of the web sites listed above.  The person
> running the Open Hymnal Project uses mainly songs from pre-1923
> hymnals so they are guaranteed to be in the public domain in the
> United States.

I have seen this asserted a lot over the years, then a while back, I saw 
someone counter this statement and assert that, older works may still have 
copyright protection under various state laws.

Would anyone care to enlighten us further?
>
> Denver
>
>
> 1. http://www.pastors.com/rwmt/article.asp?ArtID=10256
> 2.
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_17/Chapter_1/Section
>_110 - see subsection (3)
> 3. http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#32.2 - see subsection (3)
> 4. http://www.willowcreek.com/wcanews/story.asp?id=WN06I22006

all the best,

drew





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