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Changing the Copyright Laws

Messages posted on our Methodist Musicians Listserv have demonstrated great frustration and dissatisfaction with U.S.A. copyright laws. Some church musicians work hard at remaining within the law. Others break the law regularly, sometimes offering an excuse, sometimes claiming ignorance. Still others are somewhere in between. But nearly all the writers are unhappy with the restrictions and requirements the law places on their ministry in the local church if they are to remain within the law.

It comes as a revelation to some musicians that the copyright laws exist for the sole protection of the rights of the creator or administrator of those rights. Church musicians are the ones whose obedience to the provisions of the law is demanded and whose activities in music and worship ministry are controlled.

Many of the messages to the Methodist Musicians Listserv have called for changes to the law. Some have even suggested specific changes, while others have offered suggestions that may lead to change. All these suggestions would result in a less restrictive, less controlling copyright law that would allow church musicians to make copies, record, or broadcast copyrighted material in certain situations that now are forbidden.

With so much frustration and anger over the law on the part of musicians, some want to know who is responsible for the law. Who makes the law? Who benefits from it? Just who is it that likes these copyright laws that are so inconvenient for church musicians? Here are some answers:

  • Who makes copyright law? Copyright laws are federal, which means they are proposed, passed, and altered by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. States and other governmental levels do not make copyright laws, nor does the President.
  • Who benefits from the law? There are many groups and individuals who benefit from copyright law, some directly, some indirectly:
    • Authors and composers: The reasoning behind copyright law is to provide a period of protection of a created work during which the creator may control its use and derive financial gain from it through sale, publishing, licensing, rental, arranging, and performing.
    • Society and culture: After the period of copyright has expired, the work is no longer protected. It is no longer owned by the creator, and it becomes public domain. All copyrighted works eventually become public domain, able for use by other artists, thus enriching the artistic life of all people and the society as a whole.
    • Arrangers: Arrangers of a copyrighted work earn income from their own legally protected arrangements.
    • Recording companies: Recording companies earn income from copyrighted works through sales and licensing of their recordings. Each separate copyrighted song on a CD is covered by at least two copyrights: one on the song itself and one on the recorded version.
    • Performers: Performers earn income from copyrighted works through live performances and through receiving royalty payments from licensing performances of their works and arrangements.
    • Publishers: Publishers are those individuals and companies who have negotiated with a copyright holder to market the property and collect and then share the sales income with the owner.
    • Performance rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC): Performance rights organizations collect royalties for live, recorded, and broadcast performances of music of their members and then return a portion in royalties to the song writers, publishers, and authors. ASCAP had record earnings in 2005, generating $749 million and paying out a record $645 million to songwriters and composers. BMI earned $728 million and paid out $623 million (The Tennessean, 3/13/06, page E1).
    • Licensing organizations (Harry Fox, LicenSing, OneLicense.net, CCLI): Licensing organizations earn income in different ways, but these involve the granting of permission to either record or reproduce copyrighted music or lyrics. A portion of the licensing fees are returned to the copyright owner. The print licensing companies such as CCLI gain the most when license holders fail to report their use because they then do not have to pay the copyright holder a royalty on that use, and the money remains with the company as additional income.
    • Retailers: Retailers are middle merchants; that is, they purchase copyrighted print and recorded music at a lower cost, mark it up, and re-sell it to buyers at a higher price.
    • Technology companies (copy machines, computers, projectors, IPODs, software): Of the ten groups listed here that benefit financially because of copyright laws, technology companies are the only ones that benefit more from the breaking of the copyright laws than by the obeying of them. But it is the existence of the copyright laws that allows them to benefit when users break those laws.

Some of the writers to the Methodist Musicians Listserv wrote in favor of changing the law. They spoke of removing or reducing penalties. They want publishers to lower their prices. They want licensing companies to lower their fees and royalty rates. They want everyone to simplify the paperwork and record keeping. They ask how to get the law changed:

  • The law can be changed only by those who made the law — the U.S. Congress. Don't waste time talking to local or state officials or to the U.S. Copyright Office.
  • The same can be said about the ten individuals and groups listed above who benefit from the copyright law. They will not be receptive to invitations to support legislation that will lower their financial gain for the sake of church budgets and musicians' work schedules. In fact, an organized campaign to make the copyright law less restrictive will be met by substantial and well-funded opposition from these groups.
  • Informing the general public through news releases, letters, e-mail messages, and websites does little to change the laws. The sharing of information must be followed by action directed at those who write the laws.

It is unlikely that U.S. senators and representatives will alter the copyright laws to make them less restrictive. The history of copyright law is one of increasing protection, longer periods of copyright protection, and stronger enforcement of the law. It is also unlikely that those who benefit from the law will make it less cumbersome or less expensive to receive exceptions under the law. What for church musicians is a means of engaging in ministry is for these groups a means of earning income to pay the bills.

So what is the church or musician to do? While we can certainly lobby for change, our real choices are only two: to obey the law or to break the law. And it truly is a choice. We should remember that those who enforce the law of the land do so for the benefit of those whom the law protects and not those who break it.

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