(If you haven’t already, you can click on the permalink to see the video.)
Oakbrook Church used Coldplay’s Viva La Vida for a worship set song this weekend. Then, they put their beautiful videos up on YouTube. If you’re one of the people who’s saying “can they do that?” you’re not alone. Or maybe you’re in the group who’s saying “whose gonna stop ‘em?” Or maybe you’re informed about PRO accounts. Or maybe you’re just picturing Chris Martin with a mohawk?
Is it or is it not “religious” music?
Anyway, Anthony Coppedge what sayest thou? What would Copyright Queen say?
Is this what a $700.00 PRO account (annual facility or special events licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, the U.S. Performance Rights Organizations a.k.a. PROs) will get you?
Technically, the song was used as a prelude, not as part of the “worship set” as we use that term. It was the first element of the day and was selected to bring some energy to the kickoff of the new series, “One Month To Live”. We were all very proud of our creative teams who pulled this song off very well. What you can’t see in the recorded video feed is some cool Motion graphics on the side screens created by one of our interns.
As to the copyright questions – we shall see. Obviously, if we received any kind of “cease and desist” we would have to comply. But the most likely course is that the parent publishing company would file a copyright violation with youTube and YouTube would pull t down. Only time will tell.
It’s an interesting discussion for all of us who leverage popular culture for kingdom benefit.
P.S. Oakbrook is one word, not two
Very interesting choice for an opener. I have always enjoyed the idea of doing an opener song to start the service off with energy. But usually it is best to use a song that actually has energy, which Viva la Vida doesn’t.
Also, the lyrics are quite depressing. “For some reason I can’t explain I know Saint Peter won’t call my name,” “Now in the morning I sleep alone, Sweep the streets I used to own” and “And I discovered that my castles stand, Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand.”
Kudos for being relevant, but maybe a better song could have been chosen.
Sorry if I sound critical. I tried to make it as encouraging as I can!
Malachi – not trying to pick a fight, but it’s exactly for those lyrics that the song fit the topic perfectly! If you only had 30 days to live, what would you do? What would suddenly matter more than ever and what wouldn’t matter at all? Would you have huge regrets? What SHOULD you build your life (castles) on?
As for energy from the song, well, I guess that’s a matter of personal taste
My disclaimer: I’m not giving legal advice here, just my experience and opinion.
I’ve talked with copyright attorneys, constitutional attorneys, the folks at ASCAP, BMI and others…in the end, it’s never simple (I wish it was), but here’s the dealio:
The style of music is immaterial. The setting in which it is used (a service) is what counts. Secular or religious, the song style isn’t the issue from a copyright standpoint.
There are three issues in this particular example (that I’m aware of from reading the post):
1) Playback in service.
2) Synchronization.
3) File sharing/re-broadcast.
Playback is covered under multiple license types, depending on the medium, venue and license. CCLI would allow for recording for audio duplication locally (within a specified number), but not playback on YouTube.
A CVLI license will allow video playback of certain productions/distributors, but will not allow for editing, uploading (YouTube) or synchronization.
A Perform Music license would allow for the playing of audio before or after service, on its own.
If you put the song on your video editor and match up motion graphics, animations, videos or stills to the music, that’s synchronization and that’s not allowed without a Sync & Mechanical license from the music license holder, EVEN IF you have them covered for audio playback with one of your licenses.
In this instance, it is illegal to put the Coldplay song on YouTube as part of their video. Will Capitol Records (Coldplay’s label) sue? Who knows, but it’s highly doubtful.
If the church had performed the song themselves (not from a track), then we’d be talking about a WorshipCast license and they’d be able to put it up on YouTube.
In the end, most of the folks in churches view this the same way I do: It’s silly that it’s this stinkin’ difficult to use media however we want, but just because it’s silly doesn’t make it legal.
*sigh*
Jeremy & Malachi – thanks for the feedback here (and tweets).
Anthony – it is your very experience and opinion that we want. This is the thing that I would have picked your brain for hours about if we had had the time at the conference.
This is one of the most provocative issues of new, participatory media as a venue for user-generated content. YouTube complicates things in the most ginormous of ways. As do other vehicles for streaming church services. It’s one thing to perform anything in a private meeting (with attribution). It’s another all together to put it online where who knows who will or will not get or understand the attribution. But, I’ve been in numerous situations this year where worship services, at least in part, are being streamed online, sometimes even without permission from the host church.
Oakbrook says it’s a Coldplay song in the clip’s name on YouTube but when I embed it in my blog (which you can’t see except by permalink because I can’t drive my new theme correctly yet so please use the permalink) it looses the verbage.
And as we’ve discussed before, most churches are attempting to stay within the law – unless they’ve decided that it’s just too much work to figure out what the law is, where it applies and/or who to talk to for further information because confusion prevails when the new media get added into a brand new set of equations. Unfortunately, many churches are getting stuck there and for good reason.
This issue is HUGELY important…. it’s one thing to use CCLI with your overheads or bulletins (bulletins remember those? they were made of paper). But how you gonna do that when Internet Campuses are streaming church online and all is “re-broadcast” and then “re-broadcasted” again and again in bits and bites of viral share?
These same issues are raised with photos, of course. Many churches are still using photo press releases (as are my kids’ school) to take photos for events. This is silly. The school’s football games are on ESPN – you gonna get a release from every person at the game? And parents are videoing everything from football games to Vacation Bible School and putting it all over the net. What if your church has Smugmug or a Flickr stream. Who owns it, who controls it and who in the world will monitor it after it gets shared?
Additionally, oh yes I could go on, if you use a projector to thow up images during a worship set, you have some measure of control, etc. and would use permission. But what if that’s outside on a building which we will be seeing more often and has been covered here (See the amazing Cameron Ware as Visual Worshiper, for example). And then what if someone uses a phone to video it… yeah, that’s next.
Decentralization, globalization, the flattening world, and etc. have created an un-walled garden that it will be almost impossible to re-contain. Unless there’s a worldwide, governing body exerting some measure of control. Did someone say Book of Revelation?…..
Excellent post and comments — thanks Cynthia and everyone!
Ok, this isn’t rocket-science… at least to draw some basic conclusions during or after this discussion… and build a wiki-page with the basic guidelines… and links off to more details. Right?
What say let’s all crowd-source to create (or at least start) a ‘definitive guide’ **wink** re copyright law and safe-harbors available to us.
If it’s so important, then I’m believing it’s something we need to get good at — researching, discussion, drawing conclusions and documenting… then running thru the cycle again as practical.
There are several Christian wiki’s to choose from — unless you think Wikipedia is going to come up with the best solutions for Great Commission obstacles.
So Cynthia… where do we go from here?
-Neil
A Wiki is a good idea, though the clean up of misconceptions posted as “facts” (try on “Fair Use” for size) will be potentially daunting.
The place to go and get this info is http://www.churchca.com. My friend Susan (the self-proclaimed Copyright Queen) does make a business out of this and she’s done far more than anyone else to help churches wade through this mire of information and legal clauses.
Setting up a wiki is a great idea but all the wiki projects I’ve been involved in are actually centralized or at least have a good centralized base effort to lay the groundwork and start promotion campaigns. Left unattended, I’ve seen wiki’s wither just like abandoned blogs.
Neil, a job like this needs a handful of committed researchers to start a decent wiki and promote it amongst churches who have learned a few things and would share. And then, as Anthony points out, it would have to be monitored, possibly by Copyright Queen, et. al. and although the “mire of information and legal clauses would be daunting” at least those who have learned a few things could provide links, etc. for those of us who want to learn.
This seems fairly simple to me, so perhaps I’m missing something. When a video is uploaded to Youtube the uploader is asked if they are the copyright holder of the images and music in the video. They are told not to upload the video if they are not the copyright holder and do not have permission from the copyright holder to do so.
Oakridge church does not own the publishing or recording rights to Coldplay’s music. It’s not about PRO licenses at that point then. YouTube’s rule requires Oakridge to own copyright or have permission from the copyright owner before uploading. A PRO license would not grant that, correct?
So Oakridge, regardless of whether breaking a law, is breaking YouTube’s user agreement.
I’m an artist, worked in publishing for three years before that, write my own stuff. I love for people to spread my music any way they choose but I do cringe when I see them breaking YouTube’s policy.
We Christians are supposed to live up to passages like Romans 13 right? (Granted, there was more at stake in the original context than having a video taken down by THE MAN.) There are rules and laws that we should abide by regardless of benefit, or lack thereof, to us. Right? Am I misreading Jeremy here? Seems like he’s saying, essentially, “If we don’t get caught then I guess what we did is OK.” That’s no foundation for Christian ethics is it? Do we define “right” as “whatever we can get away with?”
Again, not sure I’m interpreting correctly. My apologies if I’m not. Perhaps you could clarify if that’s the case, Jeremy. As it is, it seems to me that Oakridge is knowingly breaking Youtube’s user agreement and possibly copyright laws and doesn’t care unless they’re caught.
Hi Shaun, thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate an artist weighing in on this subject. Just for clarity’s sake the church we’re talking about is Oakbrook, easily confused with Oakridge.
Additionally, although we are talking about them, they are only one of many, many ministries who are all trying to sort out these complicated issues.
You bring up a good point clearly about YouTube’s policy. Hope others add to this dialog.
I’ve tried a bit to understand copyright law … and it does seem incredibly complicated … when the “best” advice you hear at a conference is “ask your lawyer” … I am not sure what a church of 300 is to do … other than risk breaking an intricacy of the law or shy away from any non-original media use altogether (ok maybe they can follow CCLI so they can at least sing other peoples songs [not sure if they can let the guitarists take home the music to practice though] or maybe I guess everyone can use hymnals), or maybe stick with works in the Public Domain?
But here’s the thing too … let’s say you are Chris Tomlin … and someone who has bought your song on iTunes … puts it on the slideshow of their mission trip photos … are you upset that they broke need for a sync licens” .. or stoked that they used your song? (now if you are Chris Tomlin’s publishing company I don’t know how you feel)
In other words — is there a tension between the whole original purpose of “creating” and some of the “protections” that are currently in place?
Likewise, I have to admit I find the idea of a copyrighted version of the Bible, somewhat interesting. (I don’t begrudge the translator a fair wage and realize there might be something for protecting the purity of the translation — but it also seems a little hard to imagine going up to God, hey I put your words in another language so people could hear them … but I am gonna hold back some rights on their use, that sound ok?)
Maybe church’s could endow artists who could then release their work under a creative commons no-attribute license for the general good of the body of Christ?
that doesn’t cover third party recordings ….