From Whom All Blessings Flow
I just can’t stop making you money. First, I tipped you off about Sound Exchange, and the money that is being set aside to pay performance royalties to artists whose work is used in the digital domain. Then I clued you into the importance of registering your songs at Harry Fox and MCPS/PRS in order to avoid other people collecting your lost income. Next, I told you to get in the game, and suggested that there was an important new income source in video games. And now it’s time to go to church.
Okay, I realize this isn’t for everyone. If your catalogue of songs is predominately death metal anthems or songs about getting “low”, church is probably not the place for you. Clearly, Christian music, whether it’s traditional hymns, Christian rock, CCM pop, or gospel, is not for everyone. But it’s for more people than you might think. If you’re not in the industry, it might surprise you how big these markets are. But what might really surprise you is what a big business it can be.
I remember the first trip I made to Nashville—I was working for a large publisher based in New York, and headed off to meet my colleagues in the Country music office (based in Nashville) and in the Christian music office (located in the center of that industry, in the suburb of Franklin). Like most offices in the country music industry, our Nashville office was located in a small family house along Music Row. It was charming and cozy, but by New Yorker skyscraper standards, not overly impressive.
With that in mind, I headed off to the Franklin office of our Christian Music division, expecting an even smaller office somewhere in a suburban office park. After all, country music is a much bigger business than the Christian business, right?
What I found was a six or seven story glass tower devoted entirely to the business of Christian music—a record label, publishing company, printing company and recording studio. “How can the CCM business be generating this kind of income?” It didn’t seem to correspond in any way to the level of CCM record sales. Turns out.. it doesn’t need to .
The Christian music industry is one segment that learned early on that there is more to making money in music than record sales. A huge portion of the income in Christian music is generated by print music, an area that has been largely ignored in the secular business. Print music is key in the CCM market because of the sale of praise and worship music, choral arrangements, youth choir arrangements and other songbooks that are marketed directly to churches and Christian bookstores. For those writers fortunate enough to write a praise and worship favorite, the money can flow in year after year—from the publishing rights, not the record royalties.
So for those of you who are actively involved in the Christian or Gospel business, it’s essential to learn how to collect the money for these worship service uses. This past week, Billboard writer Susan Butler , in her column “The Publisher’s Place”, highlighted a very important organization:
Christian Copyright Licensing International
This company, based in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, licenses and collects royalties from churches for reproductions, reprintings or other copying of songs to be used in their worship services, choir shows, etc. Churches are not required to pay performance royalties (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC) for their services. But they are required to license, and pay for reproductions like bulletin inserts, songbooks, or visual projections of the songs. What does that really mean to publishers? About $172 million over the past 19 years!
CCLI is not only responsible for collecting the money, and distributing it to the publishers and writers, but also for helping church choir leaders, ministers and others to understand their obligations under the law, and the importance of licensing the music they use. It even has an online service called SongSelect that works with nearly 60,000 subscribers, giving them access to a library of almost 200,000 songs available for download. The organization licenses 145,000 churches, offering a “church copyright license” with scaled annual fees based on the number of church members. From those church licenses, CCLI distributed more than $15 million to publishers last year.
Please be clear. This is not a religious message. But if you’ve watched the election results on Tuesday, and seen the surprising strength of Mike Huckabee, you’ve seen that the power and size of the evangelical movement should not be underestimated. I’m not preaching to anyone here.
I’m talking business—and reminding you that if you are involved in the CCM or Gospel industry, you need to be familiar with CCLI. There is real money there—money that can help you to sustain your business, spread your message, and get your music heard. When people lift every voice and sing, someone’s getting paid. Let it be you.
