The Real Secret Surrounding the Obstacles of Incorporating Music into eChurch Worship Services

One of the most significant pain points when creating virtual worship services for the content and media managers is incorporating music into the program.
While there are a plethora of platforms to download music for entertainment and educational purposes, downloading music for commercial use without the owner's permission is infringing upon his/her copyrights.

So how does this affect the church, which is adding music under a license they purchased protecting them from copyright infringements?

​Well, most licenses protect the church during a worship service, and in church rehearsals, typically, your rights are not extended concerning the internet as freely.  One famous licensing company's CCLI offers a streaming service contract stating your right to:  "Upload videos to YouTube and similar services provided that copyright owners have the right to monetize and place ads on videos containing their owned copyrights (these terms of the agreement do not override those of the streaming platforms)."  

So what does that mean for you?

It's not a problem if you are just starting your online ministry and don't plan to monetize your content. However, as your virtual church begins to grow, it can be a significant problem and cost your ministry hundreds and possibly hundreds of thousands in residual income.
Hence if you have a licensing agreement like the example above, this one clause allows artists to make an agreed-upon commission from negotiations made on their behalf by record labels, and distributors, with content creators like YouTube. At the same time, your ministry earns nothing off the message itself.

Facebook, on the other hand, is in a different position.  YouTube has a music company that has already made complex agreements with these entities, while Facebook is not, and their only current option is to pull your live video once it is flagged. However, in fairness to Facebook, I understand they are working very hard to negotiate with Record Labels and Distributors in creating a similar deal.  And while this still may not help your ministry concerning monetization, at least your videos won't be snatched down. 

Hence, unless you have a budget and a team that will allow your ministry to create its own music,  I would suggest you not incorporate music you don't own the copyrights. Instead, hire a musician to create an original introduction to play before your sermon starts and an outro to be played at the end of the sermon, especially if you are using the Facebook platform exclusively.  

If you are in a situation where you have created and uploaded several Youtube videos that have received thousands of views already, I have a solution that I will be presenting to rectify your problem and show you how to monetize your existing content during an exclusive deep dive coming up soon. If this is an area you would like to get more details about, please sign up here to be included in that exclusive offer.