There have been some questions about copyright for streaming/posting on YouTube your church services and other church events where music is performed, and hopefully, this will give you some answers, with regards to what’s available.

The U.S. copyright law requires permission for “synchronization” to allow you to broadcast copyrighted music with video, whether it’s Facebook Live, posted on your website, or on a YouTube channel. According to the law, you must request permission before broadcasting it in any form. You can do this by contacting each publisher and requesting a synchronization license (many have a minimum fee, for example, Selah’s is a minimum of $15). This could clearly become a nightmare of administrative work, even though we all enjoy that aspect of our work so much.

Or, you can subscribe to a service that allows you to do synchronization. The most comprehensive is Christian Copyright Solutions (christiancopyrightsolutions.com) which works with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC to license their artists’ works for streaming. Nearly all (but not all) composers and authors and publishers are members of one of these agencies. The lowest fee is $500/year and goes up to $5,500/year. A disadvantage from a moral standpoint is that these fees really don’t make it back to the composers because of their reporting system.

A more reasonable option is the OneLicense.net Podcast/Streaming license, which covers your Facebook Live broadcasts, the archived Facebook videos from previous services, your YouTube channel, and broadcasting video on your church’s website. This covers copyrighted hymn text and tunes from their member publishers and the performance of any of the member publisher’s organ/choral/instrumental copyrights. If you use them for permission to reprint copyrighted hymns or service music or other congregational music in service leaflets you can add the Podcast/Streaming license with a simple email or phone call to them. The fees begin at $67/year and go up to $655/year (for those churches with weekly attendance up to 30,000). You would need to do this as an add-on if you were providing a PDF of your bulletin with the copyrighted hymn texts or tunes, or if you are scrolling the lyrics during the video.

If you never reprint copyrighted congregational hymns for use, they have a new “Limited Podcast/Streaming License.” The title is misleading: it’s not limited in what you can use from their member publishers, it’s limited to only Facebook Live, YouTube channels, and website videos. And that license is the same price as the add-on, $67/year up to $655 a year.

A caveat: to keep these resources online or available through YouTube or Facebook or on your website, you need to pay for the annual license, and if you don’t renew, you must take them down.

OneLicense has also said they can make arrangements with churches if you would never stream a service but now are for the time being, but you’re not printing any bulletins or providing a PDF with copyrighted hymns at the moment, they can toggle you back and forth between one or the other option. And if you stop streaming at some point mid-license, they can remove that and prorate the fee.

A caveat: to keep these resources online or available through YouTube or Facebook or on your website, you need to pay for the annual license, and if you don’t renew, you must take them down.

Publishers from OneLicense.net covered under both congregational reprints and Podcast/Streaming include Augsburg Fortress, Church Publishing, Celebration, Concordia Publishing, ECS Publishing, Fred Bock (including Hinshaw), GIA (including Iona Community, Taizé, RSCM), Hope Publishing, Kjos, MorningStar, OCP, Oxford University Press, Paraclete Press, Selah Publishing, and hundreds more. So if you would be performing copyrighted hymns, choral music, organ or keyboard music, or instrumental music from one of these publishers, you would be covered with this Podcast/Streaming license.

Don’t think that you sign up once and are then fine forever, you have to tell the licensing agencies what you are using.

CCLI has a similar arrangement at similar costs you can add if you already use their services. There are many publishers that are members of both (including Selah), but the majority of what they represent tends towards the more Evangelical/Pentecostal repertoire, just as OneLicense tends toward the more liturgical traditions.

Don’t think that you sign up once and are then fine forever, you have to tell the licensing agencies what you are using. This provides income to the composers, authors, and publishers, and is the fair and right thing to do.

Note, these licenses do not cover the broadcast of pre-recorded music by other artists. You can’t take your favorite organ music or choral music CD and play a track for a prelude on your Facebook Live broadcast with any blanket license: this can only be arranged by contacting directly the copyright holder of the recording (usually a label).

David Schapp is the organist/choirmaster at Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and president of Selah Publishing Co., Inc.

This article originally appeared as a Facebook post on David Schaap’s personal Facebook page.