Hymn Accompaniments

Many churches are now sharing services by live stream, Zoom, Skype or other video sharing methods. You are welcome to use our recordings during such services. If you are prerecording video and making it publicly available or effectively broadcasting - for example live streaming on Facebook or YouTube - please acknowledge John Keys and www.hymncds.com in the accompanying text. For prerecorded video only available to your congregation or directly connected live mechanisms such as Skype this is not necessary.

Please note that we can only give our permission for use of recordings - if the music is in copyright there may still be licence requirements for reproducing the music (this is not usually required in a church, but is for streaming/recording). Here is the UK guidance:

If music is involved, unless all the music is in the public domain written (both words and music) by composers and authors who died over 70 years ago – up to 31st December 1949, a licence is required. (Note that many traditional hymns are out of copyright, but there are some that aren't - for example Vaughan Williams does not go out of copyright until 2028).

Those wishing to live-stream via platforms such as Facebook, Spotify or YouTube should be covered by the existing licensing agreements in place with those platforms. Please ensure you follow the terms of use and copyright requirements of each respective platform.

If a church wishes to host a live-stream on their own website then they can apply for a limited online music licence (LOML) from the PRS.

If a Church is utilising Zoom or Skype for live streaming their services, they should enquire directly with those platforms in order to determine the terms of use and relative copyright requirements.

Alternatively, CCLI now offer a streaming licence for live performances, however they explicitly exclude 'artist or record label recordings of Songs'. We have clarified this with CCLI - it appears that given our permission, their streaming licence is sufficient. They say:

In combination, the CCL Church Copyright Licence (CCL) and CCLI Streaming Licence will cover a church to stream their services including the live worship via YouTube, Facebook Live or Zoom. In combination with a PRS for Music Limited Online Music Licence (LOML) they will cover a church to upload or stream services hosted on their own website. These CCL licences also cover the church to show the words on the screen as part of the webcast.

What these licences do not cover is copyrighted music recordings which are played (and captured) as part of the stream or webcast. For a commercial music recording there is an additional performance right for which permission must be obtained separately.

As owner of that particular performance (recording) of the song, HymnCDs can grant permission for your recordings to be streamed or webcast as part of a church service. If you grant this permission for free, the church would be at liberty to include your music recordings as part of their stream.