Worship Tools Can Conflict With Copyright Law
Discover what your ministry may not know about copyright law with this article.Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company | posted 6/26/2009
Technology has allowed churches to enhance their worship services through movie clips, PowerPoint presentations, computer graphics, sound bites, and more. At the same time, it has ushered in a new set of ethical issues for church leaders.
Why? Many churches don't know they could be breaking the law when they show movie clips during a Sunday sermon or project song lyrics onto a screen. That's because copyright law makes it illegal to use someone else's creative work without permission, even for a good cause.
Thankfully, resources have been developed to help churches acknowledge the authors of the artistic works they use to glorify God.
What is copyright?Copyright law is designed to protect people who produce original literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, or other works. It covers nearly everything that can be seen, heard or touched: books, CDs, movies, photographs, plays, and more.
The law gives original authors the exclusive right to:
- Copy, print or reprint the work
- Perform it publicly
- Sell or distribute it
- Revise it, arrange it, or transform it
- Record it
The right belongs to the person who created it, not anyone who has access to it. U.S. law no longer requires a copyrighted work to bear a copyright notice. Just because a work doesn't include a copyright notice, don't assume that it can be displayed or copied without permission.
Someone who infringes upon a creator's rights can be fined from $500 to $20,000 per infringed work, even if the violation was unintentional. If an organization knowingly breaks the law, an additional $100,000 penalty can be added.
The way to avoid infringing on a creator's rights is to obtain permission first. Some authors grant permission freely. Others may charge a fee or may refuse to let you use their work at all. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
Aren't There Exceptions?There are exceptions to every rule, including copyright law. However, most are narrow in scope and subject to interpretation. Therefore, it's best to assume that a work is always copyright protected.
The most common exception is the fair use doctrine. It allows portions of copyrighted material to be reproduced without an author's permission for certain "fair" purposes, such as teaching, research, news reporting, criticism, and comment.
This is a vague and often tricky exception to the law. Copyright law gives no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may be safely copied without permission. In a classic copyright case, a court once ruled that an organization violated copyright law by showing just nine seconds of a movie. That's because the clip showed the crux of the entire movie (a man being shot from a cannon). In many cases, the use of a movie clip in the context of a sermon illustration might qualify as "fair use," but the decision must be made on a case-by-case basis.
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