Copyright Clearances for the
United Methodist Hymnal

10/27/1999

We are looking into this.  In the back of the hymnal there is a list of copyright owner addresses.  You may have noticed that each hymn may have multiple copyrights.  Music, harmony, arrangement, and words can all be separate copyrights.  Even within a single hymn, there may be multiple copyrights on the words (each verse with a different copyright).  As far as we can tell by looking at the copyright information, there is no single agency that we can go to get copyright clearances, permissions, or royalty information.  So... we will attempt to get this information and provide it to you here.

Meanwhile, I would like to point out a couple of copyright clearance agencies.

Church Copyright License Inc   CCLI

http://www.ccli.com/     Home Page
http://www.ccli.com/unitedstates/site_info/ccli.html   A better explanation of their licensing than what you see below.

CCLI collects a License Fee as payment for the Church Copyright License, for the reproduction of songs, according to the terms of the License. CCLI has worked out with song copyright owners in each Territory the royalty split, the amount of the License Fee to go to the song owner and the amount to be kept by CCLI for the administration of the Church Copyright License.

The Church Copyright License
Enables you to make overhead transparencies, songsheets and songbooks, input lyrics on a computer, record worship services, and make arrangements of the music (where no published version exists).

The Ad Hoc Church Copyright License
Special events such as conferences, festivals, special meetings, weddings, funerals, and so on.

The Mobile Copyright License
For traveling ministries.

Motion Picture Licensing Corporation   MPLC

http://www.mplc.com/index2.htm

The Motion Picture Licensing Corporation (MPLC) is an independent copyright licensing service exclusively authorized by major Hollywood motion picture studios and independent producers to grant Umbrella Licenses to non-profit groups, businesses and government organizations for the public performances of home videocassettes and videodiscs.

If you one of the United Methodist Churches in the California-Pacific Annual Conference, the MPLC license can be included in your Media Center combined membership.
Cal-Pac Media Center:  http://www.cal-pac.org/MediaCenter/