Are You Licensed to Sing That? 

December 3, 2024

Many churches livestream their services, which can be a great help to people who are sick, shut in, or are for whatever reason unable to attend church in person. The copyright rules and regulations are a little strange. Essentially, churches may place a copyrighted song on the screen for their worship service; but this built-in permission does not extend to services that are livestreamed. If copyrighted music is livestreamed, permissions, in the form of a license, must be in place.

In order to comply, many churches hire a copyright company to provide a license for them. But holidays can be tricky. Some licenses that are available to churches essentially cover all songs; other licenses are limited to religious songs. During holiday seasons, there may be some church events where a secular song is sung. Whether or not a church has permission to livestream such a song is dependent on its license. During holiday seasons, you want to be sure that your church has the right kind of license to avoid a copyright lawsuit!