written words / music, or an audio recording), the copyright belongs to you and it is protected by copyright law. As soon as it’s put into a tangible form (e.g. In the UK, copyright in your own song, or any other creative work, belongs to you automatically. But what about copyright? And should you find a publisher? Oh, and where does CCLI fit in, and how to do you get the song on their authorised song list? Copyright in a song You may even be thinking of recording it. There’s a chance other churches may want to use it too. You’re playing it in your church and your congregation likes singing it. Note that copyright law does vary between countries. We asked Rich Burrough of CCLI in the UK to explain the process of protecting and registering a song. We needed to learn how to go through that process and thought it would be helpful to share that with you too. The first job, because Matt is currently self publishing his songs (so doesn’t have a publisher to do it for him) was to get the song registered with CCLI in order to have it listed on the song usage returns that each church administrator completes when songs are sung each week. We were therefore keen to both encourage Matt in his writing, but also enable some of the songs to reach a wider audience. Apart from the fact that the songs are great, we really liked Matt’s vision behind the project and know that many of our customers, being part of smaller churches, would feel the same. Musicademy’s resident bass player, Matt Weeks is working on a song writing project at the moment composing congregationally singable songs of particularly use by smaller churches. Christian song writers certainly earn income from CD sales and touring, but a substantial income rightly goes to them via their publishers as their songs are sung in churches across the world. But how will you track that usage? And how will payment ever find its way to you? These are important questions for fledgling song writers and musicians, particularly those without other income to rely on.Īs you are probably aware, most churches are registered with Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) and pay annual licenses for the rights to sing songs in church that are still under copyright (that’s most songs written in the last 70 years). You’ve written a song, and are keen to make sure it is protected, and, if it starts to be used by other churches might even earn you some revenue. Ask the Expert: How do I protect and register a song (and earn revenue from it’s use in church)įor budding song writers, the subject of song copyright is an important one.

How to register a song