Your church may be violating copyright law, which carries with it serious financial consequences. To understand the law and verify if your church is in compliance, please check out the United Methodist Conference Communication Team website on Video Copyright Guidelines at http://www.crt.umc.org/guidebook/copyright/video.asp. Other helpful websites are http://www.ccli.com for music copyright, and http://www.cvli.org for video copyright information.
8/04/07 FROM: Dean McIntyre, music@gbod.org Director of Music Resources, GBOD, The General Board of Discipleship, Nashville
I returned last week from the 2007 national convocation of The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts. Among other things, I taught two classes on copyright and licensing for church musicians and pastors. One of the questions that always comes up in these classes is “Are they enforcing these laws? Is anyone being caught and going to jail?”
The answer to both questions is “Yes.” An Associated Press release in this morning’s(8/1/07) Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean, (p.2E) reports that local authorities recently arrested a man who copied hundreds of CDs and DVDs and was selling them from the trunk of his car. He was sentenced in Federal Court this week to 10 months in prison for copyright violation. At the time of his arrest, authorities found more than 500 copied recordings and films in his car, along with recording equipment powered by his car battery, blank CDs and DVDs, some of which were still being shown in theaters, plus $11,000 worth of illegally recorded CDs and DVDs and $10,000 in cash. The copies will be destroyed and the cash paid to the victim industries as restitution.
The U.S. Attorney said, “Violations of intellectual property crimes and copyright laws such as this occupy a high priority with both the Department of Justice and this U.S. Attorney’s office in particular….”
What does this mean for local churches? It means that if you are doing any of the following without the proper permissions or licenses, you’re in danger:
- Showing videos at your church youth group, child care, camps, retreats, or Sunday Schools, even if those videos are legally rented or purchased. - Showing film clips in worship as sermon illustrations. - Video recording your worship services, choir concerts, children’s musicals, or anything else that contains copyrighted music. - Making audio recordings of services, concerts, musicals, or anything else that contains copyrighted music. - Making copies of original recordings of choir or solo music, accompaniment tracks, or by original artists, and giving or selling them to your choir members so that they can practice the music or learn their parts outside of rehearsal. - Selling or giving away audio or visual recordings containing copyrighted music, including to performers, parents, members, or shut-ins. - Making or allowing the making of audio or video recordings of weddings or funerals in your church that contain copyrighted music. - Radio broadcasting or TV telecasting, live or pre-recorded, of worship services containing copyrighted music.
Through an agreement with over 50 producers, the Church Video License (CVLI) provides legal coverage for churches to show home videocassettes and videodiscs of motion pictures for a variety of church activities. CVLI provides cost effective ways for the church to receive permission, protecting itself from the possibility of being fined for illegal use of videocassettes and videodiscs. These may include showing a full-length feature using the original video or even playing a 30-second portion of that original video. As of September 1, 2002, United Methodist Communications is collecting fees, and processing orders in an agreement with CVLI.
For information on the CVLI license, please call the Customer Service team at United Methodist Communications. The number is 888-346-3862. Someone there will be glad to assist you. Link to the UM News Service, http://www.umns.org/02/july/295.htm for additional information (the document begins as a story, the information pertinent to membership is in the text).
Regarding the public performance rights issue for "An Inconvenient Truth." This DVD has been released for home use ONLY at this time. Local churches must purchase the PPR license from Swank Motion Pictures to show this without being in copyright violation. The license cost is $75 which is applicable for one day of screening. The cost was originally $100. To obtain this license go to http://www.swank.com/. Their telephone number is 1-800-685-7682.
