Managing your activity for Copyright purposes

Many older songs and hymns are in the public domain, and you can use these freely. But all newer songs will be covered by copyright, and you need the permission of the all of the copyright owners (there may be more than one owner) in order to use the lyrics for presentation purposes or to print on to a song sheet.

Gaining permission directly from the owners is possible, but is usually impractical for most songs. For this reason, intermediary organisations will sell you a "license" which allows you to use any of the songs that are covered by that license. Such a license will generally have two main requirements:

Displaying the License Number on all copies made of song lyrics and sheet music - to show that the copy is genuine and legal
Reporting usage of songs to the license provider so that royalties can be paid to the appropriate copyright owners

Displaying the License Number

See the section on Setting License Details for copyright management to set your License Number. Once set up, this license number will be shown on the Song Sheet, Slide Listing Report and Presentation (SlideGen Presentation or Microsoft PowerPoint) for all songs that are marked as being covered by a License.

To find out more about specifying a song as being covered by a license, see the section on Creating a Song.

Reporting Usage of Songs

In order for the usage of songs to be accurately recorded and reported, you must specify how the songs in a presentation are used when you are Creating and Saving that Presentation - in other words, are they used for "Project", "Print" or "Recording" purposes, or a combination of all three.

You must also accurately specify the copyright information and status when Creating a Song. This includes specifying whether it is under copyright and covered by a license, and if so, entering the specific Copyright Code or License Song Number for that particular song. Most license providers allow you to search their song database online in order to find out the number for a song. It is recommended that you get into the habit of finding and entering all of this information when you first create the song within SlideGen^®.

When it comes time to report the usage of songs, you can Print a Copyright Report for a particular date range. Depending on how your license provider requires you to submit your report, this printed report can be sent to them, or you can use it as a reference if you are required to enter your usage reporting online via website data entry.

Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI)

For specific details relating to CCLI, see our page on CCLI Reporting.