Licensing (CCLI & Friends)¶
Owner: Director
Purpose¶
Stay legally and ethically clean when reproducing lyrics, printing charts, streaming, and recording. Operational awareness, not legal advice — coverage varies by country and product; check the current terms of your licence provider.
Policy (must)¶
- Only use songs we have appropriate rights to reproduce for our contexts.
- Report usage per our CCLI (or other) license process — a named owner, on a cadence.
- Streaming/recording may require additional coverage — follow church policy.
- Do not paste full copyrighted lyrics into public GitHub pages if that would exceed rights; keep decks in licensed tools.
The buckets (fill in Our Congregation)¶
“We have CCLI” is not one thing. Record, in Our Congregation, which of these the church actually holds and who owns each:
| Use | Typically needs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Projecting / printing lyrics for the congregation | Reproduction licence | The basic one |
| Charts / lead sheets for the team | Chart/SongSelect-type licence or a legal chart source | Not covered by reproduction alone |
| Rehearsal audio shared with the team | Rehearsal/recording provision or legal source | Sharing a ripped track in the chat is not covered |
| Streaming or posting the service online | Streaming licence | Covers congregational singing of licensed songs on the stream |
| Playing master recordings / multitracks on the stream | Separate permission | Playing tracks in the room is not the same as broadcasting masters |
| Walk-in / secular recordings | Separate rights question | Outside the worship-set policy |
| Originals | Writer splits documented before wide use |
Practical¶
- Prefer Planning Center / SongSelect / licensed sources for charts
- Before a new title enters Trial, confirm it is in the licensed catalog (new-song gate)
- Track license numbers and the reporting owner in Our Congregation; private details stay out of the public repo
- Point to your provider’s current summary rather than restating coverage here
https://theonize.github.io/petra/06-music-library/licensing-ccli/
