All three of these songs below are congregational favourites, but do you know which are in copyright and which is public domain?

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Shout To The Lord

Rock of Ages

Many people are not aware that two of these songs are still in copyright, and therefore reproducing the lyrics without a licence is an infringement of copyright law.

Many churches maintain a database of lyrics on a computer to print lyrics in the weekly bulletin, or to project lyrics onto a large screen or wall. This is for the sole purpose of encouraging their congregation to enhance their worship experience, and ultimately grow in their relationships with God.

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Were you aware that making a photocopy or printing of a song's lyrics, without the permission of the songwriter, is a breach of the Copyright Act, and could make a church vulnerable to legal action?

It's true. Churches are not exempt from any aspect of the Australian Copyright Act 1968, which means that the simple act of making copies of songs for your choir or musicians could be putting your church at risk if you do it without a proper licence.

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The interest in the Church Video Licence has been great with many churches making inquiries and taking up the easy solution for using video.

Below is a link to a recent article published in the Southern Cross Newspaper May 2007. There is one inaccuracy and that is we do not licence movies produced by Village Roadshow.

[Link to Article]

In today's Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Dr Matthew Rimmer from the Australian National University (ANU) has commented that the Australian copyright laws are still not keeping up with technology developments and need to be updated. While the copyright law has been updated to include personal media devices like the iPod, the law is out of date when it comes to other areas of the internet, including YouTube, Google, Wikipedia and so on. He said that "At the very least, Australia should provide equivalent protections that exist in the United States".

Technology keeps developing, and the law always has a hard time keeping up!

Read more at SMH article.

We have finally taken down the curtain on the new site. We are continually working on making it easy to navigate and provide you with the resources you need to help unravel the complex copyright issue.

We would love your feedback.

I haven't been able to verify the source of this, so if you can help with that, I'd be glad to correct that!):

When you write copy you have the right to copyright the copy you write, if the copy is right. If, however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy. If you write religious services you write rite, and have the right to copyright the rite you write. Very conservative people write right copy, and have the right to copyright the right copy they write. A right wing cleric would write right rite, and has the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copy right before the copyright can be right.

Should Jim Wright decide to write right rite, then Wright would write right rite, which Wright has the right to copyright. Duplicating that rite would copy Wright right rite, and violate copyright, which Wright would have the right to right.

Right?

Today we had our Owner Meeting, for the song owners and publishers participating in CCLI's Licence programs here in Australia and New Zealand. We had some excellent speakers and participants, including Virginia Morrison, Copyright Lawyer and Consultant with Morrison Legal. Virginia reviewed the developments in copyright in Australia over the past year. She provided a helpful link to the Attorney General's web site, where there is a collection of Fact Sheets and FAQs about the amendments to the Copyright Act:

Copyright Amendment Act 2006

The Copyright Council also has an information sheet (PDF) on the Copyright Amendment Act.

Questions such as these are answered at those two locations:

• Can I record my favourite television program to enjoy later?
• Can I keep a library of copied television programs?
• Can I play a DVD that I have bought overseas?
• Can I copy my music collection onto my iPod?
• Can I copy my old videos onto DVD?

A church asked that question, about the copyright ramifications where a TV (free-to-air) is being used in a church setting, such as for a social event. The Australian Copyright Council has some helpful advice on this:

If you are watching television, rather than screening a DVD or video, you do not need permission from the TV station, the owners of copyright in the movie or film footage that is broadcast, nor in relation to underlying sound recordings included in the broadcast. This is because of special exceptions in the Copyright Act.

You will, however, need to check that the venue or your organisation has a licence from APRA for playing any music and song lyrics included in the broadcast.

You may also need permission for the public performance of any literary or dramatic works included in the broadcast. However, there is no collecting society which licenses such uses.

The Australian Copyright Council has a very helpful web site, with myriads of information sheets available. The above quote was taken from an information sheet there, "Videos, DVDs & films: screening in public".