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I was told our church could not put the words to praise music on a screen for the congregation to see the words nor can the words to the praise songs be put in the bulletin to follow along with praise.  Churches have to pay to use these songs in worship.  I understand about copyright, but I do not understand why churches have to pay to use songs in worship when all belongs to the Lord or is it industry that has taken the place of ministry? 

Copyright laws prevent the reprinting of copyrighted materials without the express written permission of the registered owner. The registered owner does not necessarily have to charge a fee for this purpose. It is up to that owner as to whether a fee is charged or not. There are some instances on the internet in which the owner has posted their material with an exemption for churches to copy that material without any fee charged. Occasionally it is possible to write the owner of such material and to receive a written exemption for certain purposes.

Unfortunately there are those that are more concerned with receiving money than they are in doing God's work. It has been said that religious material is a very large money maker and this is evident by many that can be seen selling such.

I personally cannot see trying to make a profit on serving God. This is one of the reasons that I like the e-Sword Bible study software package that is produced by Rick Meyers. It is completely free and comes with a very large selection of software add-ons. One of these add-ons is a selection of song lyrics that do not have a copyright on them. I have seen other Bible software packages that are extremely expensive that do not even come close to comparing to the quality of e-Sword.

Hello Maryjane,

Sister, can I assume this is the copyright statement or agreement on some brand new music, most specifically some sheet music the church just bought?

Or, is this someone in the congregation expressing an opinion about copyright?

The majority of the hymns that most churches use are long out of copyright, and the rules mentioned don't apply. I have seen some pretty rough copyrights with NEW Christian materials from some publishers. I understand workmen needing a living wage for their labor, but I don't think they do themselves any favors with rough copyrights like you mentioned. If the new song becomes popular, they will be able to sell sheet music and eventually even get royalties if it's included in Hymnals. Some really do overkill in trying to make money on all kinds of Christian materials.

In my opinion the older hymns are some of the most beautiful. They still have limited copyright restrictions like not claiming them as your own or selling them.

Love In Christ,
Tom

You can add those as my favorite, as well.