Today I am going to provide you with some guidance on how to protect your church from copyright infringement.
In today’s world, we live in a digital immersive environment. Everything from colorful images, to amazing music, thought-provoking videos, and the list goes on.
I have witnessed churches finding themselves in huge legal battles by using the content on the Internet that was simple to avoid, had they taken a few easy steps.
In today’s times, using visual on slide displays during your morning worship has pretty much become the norm across all denominations.
However, did you know that the images you are using as well as the lyrics you are displaying are subject to copyright?
Let’s take a look at protecting yourself against any potential litigation issues.
You need to take a look at a subscription from CCLI to help protect your media and the various ways in which you choose to display it.
Just because you have a basic CCLI license to protect what you show on your displays, doesn’t mean you are covered to display across the Internet.
What I am referring to is the fact that more and more churches are moving to use platforms such as Facebook Live and YouTube to deliver their morning services, which I highly encourage you to do.
However, the moment you showing the lyrics to a song from within a hymnal or even words from one of today’s top Christian artists you may find yourself in violation of copyright laws. You need to ensure that you have the correct package from CCLI that covers you against all forms of both broadcast and re-broadcasting.
Let’s talk about images that you may be using within your church or ministry.
Everyone loves a good captivating image and Google is full of them. However, just because you found it on Google Image Search, certainly is not a “green light” to go ahead and use it with your content. In fact, this is the quickest sure fire way to find yourself facing a DMCA Violation.
First, you will receive an email from the owner of the image, music, or video that you may be using advising that they own the rights to the content you are displaying. They will provide you with a timeframe in which to have the content removed.
What happens when people fail to do so, is the content owner then proceeds to the next step of contacting your website hosting provider and providing them with information that you are in violation of copyright laws and a DMCA Violation. Most web hosting providers will immediately take the content down, as they don’t want to subject themselves into any legal battles.
Worse yet, they will report you to Google and chances are that your website will become “blacklisted” for copyright infringement violations and make it nearly impossible for anyone to find you on search engines. It’s just not worth it.
Each of the above referenced photo websites have stunning high-definition imagery to utilize on your website, digital slides, etc.
Be sure to read how you may utilize these images upon your website and whether or not the author of the photo requires any linking or credits for the image to be used upon any of your digital media.
Who doesn’t love a quality image taken of children having a wonderful time at church? All of us do it. Right?
Wait!
Before you begin splattering your amazing photos of your church camp, VBS, children’s plays, and others, you might want to pull back until you have assured yourself that you have covered all of the bases.
I have seen way too many churches find themselves in a bit of a pickle when it comes to using photos of children.
There are some things to make sure you have taken care of prior to using these photos on any forms of digital display.
One important thing to consider when it comes to children, specifically, those who are living in foster care. Laws strictly prohibit the utilization of any image(s) of children who live within a foster care environment. So it is vitally important that whoever may be taking your photos knows who the children are that this may apply to and exclude them from the photo shot.
This is where having someone who is an expert in Photoshop may come in handy, as they know how to remove subjects from any given photo while leaving the rest of the photo intact.
While it can seem somewhat daunting, protecting your church from copyright infringement isn’t as difficult as you may think. It does, however, require that you know where to go to cover all your bases.
If you need help in protecting your church or ministry and not sure where to get started, please feel free to leave me comment below and let’s set up a time to review what policies you currently have in place as well as ensuring you have the right level of protection to ensure that you will not find yourself in any unnecessary legal battles.
Who doesn’t enjoy an amazing worship song?
Each of us has our own favorites. However, if you are thinking of using them as a background track on your morning worship service video, you need to make sure you have the authorization to do so. This certainly applies to anyone broadcasting to Facebook Live, YouTube, or any other video streaming platform.
Have you ever streamed your service live to YouTube, only to receive a warning about “copyright infringement?”
Believe me it happens all the time.
However, this is easily prevented as well. Again having the right licensing level from CCLI and knowing how to place that information into your video description and meta content will prevent you from being taken down by any video streaming provider.
Anywhere that you can upload digital media, regardless of its format, can and will hit you hard for copyright infringements if you are in violation. Everyone from Facebook, Google, YouTube, iTunes, etc.
Let’s address those who may be producing audio segments to be broadcast in the form of a podcast to publish to iTunes or Google Play.
If you are going to have music tracks that are used for your intro’s and outro’s, please make sure that you are purchasing the tracts from reliable sources and that you have the required licensing for re-broadcasting them on your tracks.
Furthermore, there are legal teams already put together who can provide you guidance within most any denomination that exists today. Please take time to reach out to them if you find yourself in a rut.
Again, I am here to help you ensure that you never find yourself answering to a copyright infringement issue of DMCA violation.
We’re always interested in hearing what steps and measures that your church is taking to ensure that you are doing your part in protecting your church from copyright infringement.
Share them with us below, we’d love to know what you are doing.
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