FAQs

Scoring copyright music by hand would require permission from the copyright holders. The Church Copyright Licence covers customised instrumental arrangements of music compositions provided that no published version is available. All aspects of the music, apart from the instrumentation, must remain unchanged. The original copy must have been purchased by the church/school or a church/staff member.

Recording a song onto a video requires two permissions: 1) from the song’s copyright owner, and 2) from the label owner of the commercial recording.

Size categories are determined by the regular attendance of your main weekly worship service. If you offer more than one main service to accommodate your entire congregation, the category size would equal the total attendance of these services combined. For more information contact us.

An independent house group would require a licence if they are reproducing song words and/or music for leading worship.

licence holders can reproduce authorised songs according to the guidelines of the licence, even if the copyright line read ‘all rights reserved’.

No. Each church needs to secure their own licence. There are discounts available, however, for an affiliated group of churches. Contact us for more information.

The copyright year would usually be printed at the bottom or top of the song in a songbook. Alternatively, if the song is covered by CCLI, you can use our SongSelect facility.

The Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence covers the translation of a covered song’s lyrics from the original published version into a preferred language where no published version is available and is exclusively for use in church worship services.

We suggest that you refer to the title page which would advise of this. If in doubt we suggest you contact the Publisher of the Bible.

Yes. The Copyright Licence covers all church related ministries.

If the song still has copyright protection, then you would need to contact the Copyright Owner for permission. If the song is in the Public Domain then you may add extra verses.

Public Domain songs are songs that are no longer protected by copyright law. As such, you do not need permission to copy and use the songs.

A licence would not be required unless the copyrighted songs were being projected or duplicated.

Unfortunately there are many websites illegally offering lyric and music downloads, so we would recommend caution before using sites. If you are downloading from an authorised company these can be reported in the usual manner. You may be interested in the CCLI SongSelect® subscription service, which enables churches to download lyrics and transposable chord sheets, lead sheets and vocal sheets.

You should always ensure you have permission to use copyrighted material in church, regardless of the source.

The CCLI Church Copyright Licence and Streaming Plus Licence do not cover the visual element of a song video. Therefore, regardless of the source, we recommend you have direct permission from the owner before displaying a song or lyric video in church.

You can use file-sharing websites to distribute sheet music provided you have a Music Reproduction Licence and the shared folders are password protected with access is only granted to members of your church. However, whenever a sheet music file is downloaded from a shared storage site, a new copy has been made which would then need to be reported under this licence. .

You may upload sermons to the internet without a licence provided they don’t contain any copyright material, and you have the permission of any speakers or contributors.

Scoring copyright music by hand would require permission from the copyright holders. The Church Copyright Licence covers customised instrumental arrangements of music compositions provided that no published version is available. All aspects of the music, apart from the instrumentation, must remain unchanged. The original copy must have been purchased by the church/school or a church/staff member.

You can use file-sharing websites to distribute sheet music provided you have a Music Reproduction Licence (MRL) and the shared folders are password protected with access only granted to members of your church. However, whenever a sheet music file is downloaded from a shared storage site, a new copy has been made which would then need to be reported under the MRL.

The number of copies permitted depends on the size category of your licence, and can vary from licence to licence. Find further information here.

Each page should have the Music Reproduction Licence Number, in the following format: Reproduced By Permission. MRL No. [ ]

You’ll find lists of the publishers, catalogues and producers for our licences on our Authorised Lists page.

No. You would require the additional cover of the Music Reproduction Licence to make a photocopy of a typeset page from a publication, as a separate copyright exists in typography.

Yes. If you no longer have licence cover, you cease to exercise any right to use the copies and they should be destroyed.

Unfortunately CCLI’s licences do not cover you to make recordings of your services, where either live music or music from a recorded source is played.

Provided music is not played during the recording, no licence is required to record and distribute your services. However, you should ensure you have permission from all contributors before you record their performance.

No. We recommend contacting the copyright owner.

You can use file-sharing websites to distribute sheet music provided you have a Music Reproduction Licence (MRL) and the shared folders are password protected with access only granted to members of your church. However, whenever a sheet music file is downloaded from a shared storage site, a new copy has been made which would then need to be reported under the MRL.

No. You need only report each time a song is reproduced.

You will be sent a verification email when you create your User Account with a link that you must click within 24 hours to complete the sign-up process. If you haven’t received this email it’s likely that it got caught in your junk mail filter, so please check there first. Then, if you still haven’t received it, please contact us.

If a song is covered by the Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence, it is called authorised. There are a small number of popular and regularly sung songs which are not covered by the CCLI Copyright Licences and these are referred to as Unauthorised. The Reporting website features all songs authorised under the Copyright Licence. If you can’t find the song you wish to report, it could mean a couple different things. The song information may not yet be submitted to CCLI by the publisher, or it may mean that you have reproduced an unauthorised song. In each case there is no need for you to report any activity. Please note, however, that permission to reproduce unauthorised songs must be obtained directly from the publisher.

Unfortunately, songwriters don’t always choose unique titles for their songs, and there can often be several versions/arrangements of the same song by different authors. This can cause some challenges when trying to report a specific song. The ‘POPULAR’ feature is there to help, showing the most common titles. If you find multiple results with that same song title, please check the names of the authors and copyright information to determine which song you need to report against.

TIP: If you click on the ‘i’ symbol next to a song title in the list of search results it will display further information about that song including the author, catalogue and copyright details, lyric preview and often a sound sample too.

You’ll find help-guides at ccli.com/reporting.

Only the Administrator can add or remove users and change who the Account Administrator is. If this person is no longer around, please contact us.

Yes, you can amend your report at any time during your assigned reporting period. To make a change, click History, choose the song you wish to edit, click the arrow to the left of the song’s title, then the three dots to the right of the reporting categories.

We recommend that you report as you go. With Reporting you can assign as many users as you need to your account. This means that everyone who reproduces songs or makes copies can take responsibility for reporting. But if you find yourself in a situation where you have not reported weekly, yes, at the end of a reporting period you can still complete your reporting activities.

You can see how many times a song has been reported within the current reporting period. Click History, choose the song you wish to view, then click the arrow to the left of the song’s title to see a list of previous reports of that song.

Yes, it’s still important to report. To do so, simply log in to the Reporting website and click Nothing to Report.

The number of copies permitted depends on the size category of your licence, and can vary from licence to licence. Find further information here.

Copyright protection lasts for 50 years following the death of the last surviving author.

Under the words of each song reproduced you are required to include the following: “[author], © [year, owner], [your licence number]” e.g. Fred Smiley, © 2007 Happy Music Ltd., CCL No, 123456

For the Church/School Copyright Licence, please research the song using SongSelect or check the authorised catalogue. If the copyright owner of the song is listed and the purpose of the copy is to assist the congregation, then you are free to reproduce the words of this song.

You’ll find lists of the publishers, catalogues and producers for our licences on our Authorised Lists page.

No. You would require the additional cover of the Music Reproduction Licence to make a photocopy of a typeset page from a publication, as a separate copyright exists in typography.

CCLI cannot give permission to reproduce any material of which the copyright owner cannot be traced. If you reproduce these songs it is at your own discretion, and you must be prepared to pay royalties if the owner becomes known at a later date.

The Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence permits you to print authorised song words in a ‘home-made’ songbook for use by your congregation. Each song would need to be reported once under PRINT. You don’t need to report the use of these printed books again, regardless of how long you keep them. However, if you add additional songs or print additional copies of your book, these should then be reported once under PRINT.

Yes. You should contact the copyright owner if you would like to use different words with their tune.

The Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence does not allow you to change the words of a hymn; only to reproduce the lyrics. If you wish to make any changes to a copyrighted work we would advise you contact the copyright owner directly.

Yes, any duplication of copyrighted songs needs permission. The Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence provides the permission for our authorised songs to be duplicated for the purpose of assisting the congregation.

Yes. If you no longer have licence cover, you cease to exercise any right to use the copies and they should be destroyed.

It is illegal to download words and music from websites that are not authorised by the song’s copyright owner. As long as your church holds a current Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence, you can purchase SongSelect® and download songs legally.

Churches do not need to report the initial unique download of lyrics or pointed chord/lead sheet from SongSelect as this recorded automatically by SongSelect. Reporting for the Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence would be required if lyrics are subsequently reproduced and for the Music Reproduction Licence if chord/lead sheets are subsequently reproduced.

Lyric downloads have no limit. SongSelect Advanced and Premium allow you to download/print sheet music for up to 200 distinct songs per year. Additional songs can be purchased in increments of 50 upon request. However upon renewal any downloads left over would be lost.

Yes. Please contact us for more details.

Yes. A number of software packages incorporate a feature which links to your SongSelect® account.

Additional users can only be added by your account Administrator(s). An Administrator can invite you to the account by using the tab “Link user to the Account.”

Yes. An existing Church Copyright Licence / School Copyright Licence is required to purchase any version of SongSelect®.

A unique download would be one individual song. A church would have 200 downloads per licence period. If a song is printed off in a different key or if multiple copies are printed of the same song, this would still only count as one unique download.

Your church can have unlimited users on SongSelect® and they can access SongSelect from any web device. Each user will need to create their own personal CCLI Profile account and log in details and then they will be able to link to the church account.

There is currently no charge to register songs with CCLI. Please complete our Copyright Administration form to request a Song Owner Agreement Pack or for further information.

CCLI is unable to recommend any particular publisher to you. The contact details for numerous music publishers, whom you may wish to contact directly, can be found on the authorised Administrator List.

Under the current Copyright Law, a newly-written song is protected from the moment that it is written down or recorded in some physical or tangible format. Songs do not have to be registered in anyway to have copyright protection.

CCLI pays out royalties to registered song owners based on the copy activity reports from our licence holding churches and other organisations.

Our database includes over 300,000+ songs. Copyright holders are not deleted from our database, even if there is no copy activity reported.

To become a registered Copyright Owner with CCLI, you need to complete our Owner Agreement. Please contact our Intellectual Property Department for details.