[CS-FSLUG] open source worship songs

[Alan Trick]

On Mon, 2006-05-22 at 20:37 -0700, Chris Brault wrote:
> After doing worship at many churches and working in a patent/copyright 
> office and just finishing my Communications Law course,
> 
> >> I'm afraid, Chris, that it ain't so.  Churches have to pay baksheesh or 
> >> squeeze money to somebody every year.  It's not that much (like $500 - 
> >> $900), but it's there.  And that is only for live, church performances. 
> >>   My church has stopped posting sermons on the Internet because 
> >> sometimes they had music on them - some brave soul convinced them they 
> >> would roast for eternity if they didn't desist.  Camps have been sued 
> >> (successfully) for printing songs in camp songbooks.
> > 
> > I understand about camp songbooks, but wouldn't quoting music in a
> > sermon fall under Fair Use?
> 
> Here is my understanding:
> 
> 1) As long as there is no commercial gain (whether for profit or not for 
> profit) from a live worship performance it is fair use.  This does not 
> refer to broadcast nor replay of a recording which indelibly is for 
> profit, even if only to pay for the cost or production.

I was talking about just referencing the work, not reproducing it in
full. If they just ripped the whole song off then I'd think that's
pretty reasonable, but I'm pretty sure that paraphrasing and quoting are
still Fair Use and for Fair Use it doesn't matter whether or not your
making money off of it. For example academics publish papers all the
time where they talk about work other people have done, and normally
they get payed for it too.
IANAL,
Alan Trick