President of America's CCLI talks about church licensing

IN THE February 2nd issue of the American trade magazine Billboard the president of Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), Howard Rachinski, was interviewed. He spoke about how the North American church copyright licences last year raised more than 15 million dollars for music publishers with that revenue growing consistently by about one million dollars per year. The company estimates there are about 300,000-325,000 US churches. About half of them - 145,000 - are now licensed with CCLI in the United States. Rachinski figures that about 180,000-250,000 US churches are actually copying songs for their own use.

"It's an awareness and an educational process," Rachinski says. "We help explain that when a church bought a hymn book, royalties were already paid to songwriters. Now that they're making their own copies, there has to be a way to fairly pay owners of songs." CR

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