The Complete Church Guide to CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International)

Most church-goers don’t realize the background work it takes before their praise team leads them in singing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” each Lord’s Day (Colossians 3:23). We all realize the team should be gifted with musical talent. We also acknowledge that the songs chosen should complement the pastor’s message, and that the team spends extra hours rehearsing, alone and as a group. Being the best they can be places the focus on the songs and not on any glitches due to a lack of personal and team practice or even technology. The other factor of a praise team’s song list is the official licensing that comes through CCLI—Christian Copyright Licensing International. 

Every recorded song a praise team covers must be given its official attribution (a cover is a performance of a song written and owned [copyrighted] by someone else). And yes, the owner of a song’s copyright receives monetary compensation (royalties) when another artist (or team) performs their song or if their audio and/or video is used. This CCLI website page states that, “Beginning as a ministry of the Church and a service to the Church, CCLI was founded in response to a growing need to educate the Church about copyright, to protect the Church from the consequences of copyright infringement, and to encourage greater utilization of copyrighted works in church life.”

The CCLI website is a very helpful site for those interested in learning how the whole system operates (and why). But we will give you a “Cliff Notes” version as a beginning. You can start with WorshipHouse Media’s fine article, “ 10 Essential Things to Know About CCLI.” The article was published in 2021, so we will update you on anything that has changed since then.

First things first. Does your church have a CCLI license? When you land on the CCLI website, there is a login prompt where you can enter by joining an organization (usually your church), or you may continue with a free account without joining an organization. You can view a YouTube walkthrough here.

Free Account Perks:

• You may use CCLI’s SongSelect. In addition to providing lyrics, song charts, etc. for all their catalogued songs, SongSelect offers specific public domain song resources (chord charts, sheet music, lyrics) for their catalogue of worship songs and hymns. (Public domain songs are those which are no longer covered by copyright laws, either by virtue of their existence before copyright laws were enacted, their copyright has expired, or the song is a government work, which is automatically public domain). Another exception to copyright licensing is when the creator of a song voluntarily dedicates their work for free use (Creative Commons Public Domain). When you scroll through SongSelect, songs within the public domain are highlighted as such, and you can freely get all the information, charts, etc. you need.
• You can customize a public domain song to your liking (change keys, the type of chart, download files, and print music sheets with the copyright info included.
• SongSelect allows you to search their files to confirm all copyright information.
• The free account allows the user to combine their account with other free music software (WorshipTools Presenter, etc.).

Free Account Perks When Linked to Your Church Account

If you have permission from your church, you can link a free account to your church’s existing account.

• You will have full access to all the song resources (not just public domain).
• Benefits via your dashboard include particular discounts from CCLI partners (found in your profile tab).
• If you’ve gained access through your church’s account for administrative purposes, you are able to manage all the necessary tools (report on the church’s song usage, perform admin updates, renewals, etc.

Full Use of your church’s CCLI Licenses (Paid Subscription)

• Your organization has full use of the entire CCLI catalogue and tools.

1. Church Copyright License™

This basic license allows your church to perform standard actions that help a congregation sing worship songs/hymns. A church, organization, or individual must have this license before it can add a live/streaming license. With it, you can project lyrics on a screen, print songs (for worship guides/bulletins/special events), record your church services, gain access to the CCLI catalogue of lyrics, translate foreign language songs (CCLI is a global organization), and produce custom arrangements of songs.

CCLI has three main paid licenses that supplement the copyright license.

• CCLI Streaming® License
  • This is best for streaming services that include or are wholly played live. They can be streamed via any legal platform. A software app within CCLI can perform an auto-report of the songs played (CCLI pays license fees to the copyright owner every time one of their songs is made public in any way).
    
    
• CCLI Streaming Plus® License
  • This license fits the needs of a church or organization whose streams include recorded worship songs. The Streaming Plus license includes all permissions, artist tracks, background tracks, or multitracks, and playing authorized source tracks. As with the streaming license, auto reporting is included with Loop Community multitracks built in.
     
    
• CCS WORSHIPcast® License
  • For those who include secular songs in their own website’s repertoire, this license fits the need. With a huge library of 43 million songs, you can—from your own website— stream live events of any kind throughout your facility. Song use reports are online and are straightforward.

As you can see, the usefulness of CCLI is vast. Getting started can be daunting, and CCLI has many FAQs to help you along the way. They also offer a chat service on their main page filled with answers, help documents, and an email portal for any questions you cannot find answered on their website. They post that emails are usually answered within twenty-four hours.

Paid CCLI Membership

To start the paid membership process, click here.

The licensure(s) fees paid to CCLI vary according to the size of the congregation. Oftentimes, CCLI offers a special start-up discount. A church with between 1 and 24 members will pay a normal annual base cost of $83, with the streaming and rehearsal licenses adding approximately $200. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a church with attendance between 5,000 and 9,999 will pay $1,216 as an annual base cost, with streaming service licenses (two) adding approximately $1,050. The chart on the linked CCLI site is very helpful as you gauge which licenses you need in addition to the base church copyright license.

Adding SongSelect to any plan will cost between $189 and $236.

Using CCLI is a relatively easy process, and this video gives you a great overview of using SongSelect for a public domain composition. The process works the same with the paid subscription.

COVID spearheaded a lot of significant changes around the world, and CCLI is no exception. But CCLI also changed some procedures and offerings based on the constantly changing landscape of the digital age in which we all live.

CCLI’s foremost changes since 2021 involve the following:

1. The “Top 100” chart

The Top 100 chart is based on usage of the songs chosen from the CCLI catalogue in SongSelect.

• Weekly updates now replace the bi-annual chart. This change reflects the rapidly expanding oeuvre of recorded songs.
• The rankings are no longer based on royalties or church size, but on the data from SongSelect downloads. 
• The Top 100 list now contains public domain titles, excludes “raw API integration data,” and users can retrace chart statistics that date from January 2017.

2. The Streaming Plus License has been standardized, therefore filling in the legal gap of the basic streaming license. 

• The Streaming Plus License gives allowance to churches to play and transmit “multitracks, master recordings, backing tracks, and accompaniment tracks” when live streaming or through their stored services. 

3. CCLI has made the church’s song usage recording easier to manage by automating the system to cover much of what a church does with CCLI-covered production tools.

4. Royalty Reporting

• For those who receive royalties from their music being used in churches and other organizations (publishers and songwriters), they now see quarterly reports (as opposed to the previous biannual reports).

We Christians are called to be good stewards of what the Lord has given us for His glory and for our benefit (Psalm 24:1; Luke 16:11; 1 Corinthians 4:1-2; Colossians 3:23-24; 1 Peter 4:10). CCLI helps those who compose, publish, lead, and take part in praise teams be good stewards of the gifts and talents given by the Lord.

Leading a congregation in songs of praise and worship is a service that edifies and encourages the church—the congregants, pastor, elders, and the praise team as well. We assume those who comprise the praise team pray before they assemble in the sanctuary. And we too should pray for them to guide us heartily and with excellence as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24), that the songs and hymns we sing to and for the Lord would prepare our hearts for the Gospel message brought by the pastor and elders.