No Excuses

One of the biggest issues I feel churches and Worship Leaders are dealing with (and sadly, dealing with poorly) today is copyrights and the ethics that go along with that. The website, churchmarketingsucks.com did a poll back in January about how churches feel about copyright. Here's the results of their poll: I think it's great that 12% seek legal counsel because it never hurts to be too careful, however I would be happy if we just ensured that someone in the church did research and got educated on the copyright laws. I am a bit worried about the 43% that rely on staff people. Hopefully the staff person is actually worrying and looking at these things, however in my experience, not all church staffs are as concerned as they should be.

Some examples of the offenses against this I've seen are not putting up the copyright info on slides being shown on a projector to the congregation, using pictures that are copyrighted (some even go as far as to just crop the copyright off the picture itself), using video clips that are copyrighted unauthorized, not putting copyright info on the sheet music or chord charts the band is using, copying sheet music or chord charts illegally, and sadly the list goes on and on.

Here's the reason I get so upset.........these are easy fixes. If we take the time to look into things and get educated, we don't have to break these copyright regulations. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:8-9 (NIV) "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth." We are to be the light that consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. This means we should be setting the example. There are so many businesses out there that are concerned with copyrights and ethics, yet we the church, the "children of light," are not worrying ourselves about it. Ridiculous.

Ok so here's the deal, get educated! Do your research. Below I've given a few resources to better move the church forward with copyright issues:

• http://www.ccli.com/ Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) This is what I used for pretty much every song we sang when I was a Worship Leader. Not only do they have great song selections, but they make it so easy to make sure you are following copyright code. The prices are dependent on your church size. Having a CCLI license is not an option, it's an ethical must.
  
• SongSelect is a service CCLI provides if you pay a bit extra every month. You can print off sheet music, chord charts, harmony sheets, and all kinds of resources. It's a great resource for finding special music numbers that are on theme with your service because you can search for songs by lyrics. The best part about this is the copyright info is already on the things you print, so you don't have to worry about. CCLI requires license users to submit a report every 2 years or so of a 6 month period stating what songs you have used, how many you printed, what was put on the screen, etc. If you have SongSelect they make it crazy simple to report these things. SongSelect has a database right on the website that you can use to keep track of all these things. Amazing!
• http://www.cvli.com/main.cfm The Church Video License is another key license that churches should have if planning to show any kind of video media during a service.
• http://www.wingclips.com/ Wing Clips is a great resource for churches where you can look up relevant movie clips and even search according to theme so that your clip matches your service theme. The website takes care to ensure that all copyright issues are good to go on these clips. You can download the clips on a lower resolution for free or get a membership for a small fee to get higher quality clips.
• http://www.easyworship.com/ Easy Worship is a program that a lot of churches are using instead of just Power Point for slides. The only reason I am including this link is because Easy Worship makes it easy to put the copyright info on your slides. When you put lyrics into the program it has a place to put all the copyright info as well and then they put it in the correct order on the bottom of your slides. It's magically!
  
• http://www.sxc.hu/ SXC is a great site that provides free stock images that have no copyright. The photographers and people who post to this site do so to provide great images for free to users. You just have to create a log-in to get these amazing pictures. There are numerous sites like this, but I just happen to use this one.

So with all these great resources, plus so many more that I haven't named, there is no excuse for churches to not be setting the example in ethics and copyright laws. We represent the name of Jesus and all that he stands for..remember that when you are planning your next worship service....heck remember that in your everyday life of worship.
-B