Youtube Live vs. Music Copyright

We feel the easiest way for our members to view Sacrament Meeting would be via Youtube. We have a ward member with some professional experience in trying to stream meetings via YouTube Live, and he informs us he's had a problem with meetings being terminated by youtube over things like participant's ring-tones due to copyright. He believes the hymns we play which are downloaded from the Church's music library are likely to cause termination of the stream. Is this a valid concern? Thank you.

fluxsmith wrote:He believes the hymns we play which are downloaded from the Church's music library are likely to cause termination of the stream. Is this a valid concern?

It may depend on the song selected. I believe many of the songs themselves are outside of copyright. But some do have restrictions such that they're not even posted on the church's web page.

On the other hand, even in the case where there is no copyright or the church holds the copyright, the recording may be under copyright - and it becomes a question of who holds that copyright and what they've instructed YouTube to do if it's detected. I believe the church runs it's own "label" and seems unlikely they would have instructed YouTube to "block".

At the very least, I can't remember anyone in the forum reporting their streams being dropped.

If you want to play it safe, I'd start by not playing any hymns that don't have recordings on the Hymns page. That includes such favorites like All Creatures of Our God and King, How Great Thou Art, and Because I Have Been Given Much. For those songs, there is a copyright and it doesn't belong to the church.

I've used YouTube Live for many stake conferences and other church/non-church events and haven't ever had one terminated from music infringements.

The guidelines I've received for our stake conference is that the video has to have been previously used as part of general conference.

YouTube itself will trigger on content match, rather than song matching, so the specific performance is more likely to be an issue than the copyright of the song itself.

I don't have any issues with copyright even when using YouTube live. But maybe because I'm live streaming as unlisted and not public... Another alternative here is you could use the Church's webcast.

This raises a very interesting point re: licensing of music.

Church-wide broadcasts featuring the Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra on Temple Square, etc. are professionally managed and no doubt their is someone employed to ensure all necessary musical licenses and clearances for broadcasting have been obtained, with appropriate fees paid to secure public performance, reproduction, broadcast and streaming rights (through bodies such as ASCAP and BMI).

I do not know how that same process is handled for stake conferences and ward sacrament meetings, where the musical selection could include music beyond that described above. Maybe the Church has negotiated such a deal for all music within the scope of the current hymnbook and Children's Songbook (except as noted by previous posters on this thread), but for other works, it's probably the case that individual stakes, districts and units are "on their own" to secure those rights are covered e.g. by paying for choir sheet music that comes with performance rights included.

Genuinely curious!

In the United States, music in a live-streamed event only needs a performance license. But if that event is recorded and kept around, a sync license is needed. This is one reason why it's important to not keep recordings of sacrament meetings or stake conferences after they're live streamed.

Specifically for performance (i.e. not recording, where a sync license would be needed), there is an exception for religious services. Whether it extends to live-streamed religious services has not been tested, as far as I know, but using public domain or IRI-owned songs would be safest:

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [Exclusive rights in copyrighted works], the following are not infringements of copyright: ... (3) performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work or of a dramatico-musical work of a religious nature, or display of a work, in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly;
– U.S. Code § 110(3)

Not all of the songs at the Church website are owned by the Church – you will want to check the copyright statement. All Church-produced sheet music, whether it appears online, in print, or in the Sacred Music app, has credits at the bottom of the page. If it's from the hymnbook and there's no copyright statement at the bottom, it's public domain. Otherwise, it will say © IRI (i.e. the Church) or © a third party.

That's fine for copyright on the music itself, but I think OPs concerns are probably about content matching which would disrupt the webcast. For example, if you were to stream Bach's Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring performed by the New York Philharmonic, you could get hit because their recordings are under copyright despite the song being public domain.

I believe content matching is based more on the performance than the song itself. I've seen some YouTube channels skirt the content match issue by using unpublished live performances for their teaching or critique, rather than the well-known recording done under a record label.

The Choir on Temple Square does a number of DVDs and CDs that are under copyright and managed by their label. But I doubt if the church has submitted General Conference into any content matching system. That would explain the guidance I got to only use performances from General Conference. So, you should be able to use anything found in Conference Music without any issue.

That said, I know my ward streams sacrament over YouTube and plays hymns from the Sacred Music app (the local government doesn't allow singing in church - at least not without a lot of restrictions). They've not had any issues, but I'm not sure who owns the copyright on those performances.

I streamed my father-in-law's funeral this week via YouTube (due to COVID-19 restrictions). At the end, we sang "Abide With Me Tis Eventide".

Youtube copyright claimed the funeral for that! Apparently the tune matches an arrangement by Paul Cardall, which is copyrighted. I think a big key here was that the video was saved for people to watch later, and the video wasn't marked as non-profit. (I put in a dispute on the funeral claim.)

For worship services, we are planning to play some pre-recorded prelude music prior to meeting start (hot mics are a problem, so this is our answer), Plus, the stream is not recorded and is listed as non-profit. I'm hoping YouTube doesn't strike or block that.