Copyright & Public Performance - church licences

It's a pity that the editors of modern church hymnals and books of worship don't give as much attention to the quality of editing as they do to the copyright of their typography, and the intellectual property rights of their songwriters.

I have two copies of the SATB version of Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New, published by Kevin Mayhew Limited. The second version (and I am being very careful to avoid words with very precise meanings in the publishing world for the moment) contains quite a lot of corrections in the texts of hymns and in their musical notation compared with the first, but nowhere is there any acknowledgement of that fact. But it gets worse. In one hymn there's a different number of verses, and in the melody-only edition yet another. Topping up the collection of church hymnals because of wear and tear (the bindings are decidedly unstrong) means that the choir and congregation are singing from incompatible versions of the same hymn book.

To an ex-bibliographer and library cataloguer this hymnal is a nightmare, for it poses the question: when does a reprint become a new edition? The publishers evidently consider SATB version 2 to be a reprint, because it is given the same ISBN number as the first, and you have to look hard to be able to tell the two versions apart. It is, to put it mildly, a little bit naughty.

I have drawn attention to some of the most glaring mistakes in musical notation in this hymnal elsewhere in this blog, for example

http://choirstalls.blogspot.com/2008/12/orange-brick-revised.html

but now that copyright holders are becoming more aggressive in their assertion of their rights, let's just look at some of the difficulties that even those of us who want to stay on the right side of the law and not see ourselves and our fellow PCC members or our incumbent fined or banged up in chokey for the rest of their natural face.

The Music Reproduction Licence (MRL) from Church Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) allows a PCC to reproduce the in-copyright music of some hymns for use in, say, special orders of service, provided a copyright notice is given in a prescribed form. I have no problem with that.  But what if that music contains glaring errors? Is resetting it in a music notation program such as Sibelius, Finale, or Noteworthy and then including it in a special booklet ("for use in acts of divine worship, including weddings and funerals" - we have to say that, so that there is no misunderstanding) a breach of copyright?  If the music is actually out of copyright, no. But what if it is still in copyright? I imagine it would be no defence to say "but, your Honour, they'd put an A-flat when it should have been a G-sharp, so we just put it right."

In our churches nobody sets out with the deliberate intention to steal, but the presence of a photocopier in the church office is all too great a temptation for those ignorant of the law. In essence running off a dozen copies of a anthem from a borrowed volume from the RSCM is just as much theft as running a pirate DVD copying operation from the vicar's vestry: the only difference is scale - shoplifting v. armed robbery.

In a small rural parish the legal obligations of PCCs are fast outrunning the abilities of officers to cope, and diocese doesn't help when its officers put out circular letters suggesting that when a church buys a set of hymnals it acquires copyright in those hymnals. So to put the record straight I was to give a brief report to our Deanery Synod tomorrow, backed up by a fact-sheet giving brief details of and contact numbers for CCLI, CCL, MRL, CVL, PPL, PRS, Licensing Act 2003 permissions, Bodies of People Approvals, Grand Rights, and oh, a few other things, and what to do about them. All in one neat, brief document, using words gleaned from official publications and websites.

I sent a copy to CCLI, more out of courtesy than anything. A day before Synod I received an e-mail from CCLI saying that my fact-sheet had been referred to Upstairs, and I couldn't 'use' it until I'd been given clearance.

I think that's one for the Human Rights Court, me.

And while I'm at it, I'm going to write to the Bishops, and ask if they could please arrange for my pension  to be increased to £26,000 after tax - just to poverty level, I'm not greedy. I'm on about half that, and I'm working harder and for longer hours than ever I was when I was in paid employment.

Perhaps I should write a book of worship songs...