THE POST

I was having a casual conversation with an acquaintance who stated that she saw no reason for her church to pay copyright fees for the music they used in their weekly services. She said that because of the small size of the church and the fact that they didn't record their services, there was no legal obligation on their part to pay anything to the songwriters for using their songs. I tried in a tactful way to inform her that she was in fact very wrong about the issue. This person became very angry, and because I am not actively collecting copyright fees for songwriters, I let the matter drop. 

After this encounter, I have discovered that my fellow music minister is not in the minority with this mindset. I know of only two churches in my area who pay any sort of copyright fees, and they are considered "smaller" churches by this area's standards. 

I am posting far too early to say that I have done any significant research on this subject, but I want to share some impressions regarding the matter. I am finding that music ministers, pastors, and congregation members respond with a self righteous "why should we pay for worshiping God?" to which I usually respond, "because it is the law." The rest of the people I have spoken to about this issue seem not to care one way or the other. If their church pays, fine, if not, that's fine too. I suppose this would be the post modern young people, but this hasn't been an official survey with demographic breakdowns. 

QUESTIONS

I wonder if this is a topic we should try to present at our music conferences? Would it make people more aware? uncomfortable? convicted? 

THE LAW (Yes, yes, yes, we are set free from this)

The law requires churches to pay copyright fees for having lyrics displayed by slide or transparencies, recording a song service on a church CD, and even keeping a database of songs for your church computer. 

Within our Apostolic/Pentecostal movement, would you say that we abide by the law, make excuses for why we can't, or do we just not care?