CCLI is a privately owned company that was founded in the US in 1988 by Howard Rachinski, who is the President/CEO. CCLI was launched after being developed by Howard for 3½ years while he was a Music Minister at a large church in Portland, Oregon. This prototype was called Starpraise Ministries, which began in May 1985. CCLI offers copyright licensing of songs and other resource materials for use in Christian worship.
Since its foundation, CCLI has expanded around the world to: Australia, Botswana, Canada, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe.
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The licenses / services offered by CCLI have expanded, including:
From the CCLI.COM License: "3.0 restrictions: This license does not allow churches to do the following: Photocopy or duplicate any photo sheet music(octavos) cantadas, musicals, handbell music, keyboard music, vocal solo, or instrumental works.")
As of July 15, 2007, the annual fee for a US CCLI license ranged from $49 (for a church size less than 25 people) to $4260 (for a church size greater than 200,000 people).[1] License fees are similar for churches in other countries, taking exchange rates into account.[2][3]
"CCLI distributes the majority of the License Fee to the copyright owners (i.e. publishers and songwriters) as royalties."[1] More information about CCLI's royalty distribution policies is available on the CCLI web site.[4] That page also says "Every year CCLI holds an Owner's Meeting for each region, where full details of License fees collected, and royalties distributed, are reported. Every song copyright owner participating in the Church Copyright License program is invited to the meeting for that region."
It is important to note that the performance of works in copyright (for example, playing music) as part of an act of worship is specifically exempted from copyright laws in several countries[5][6].
Problems began to arise during the 1970s, when large numbers of new worship songs were written and became popular in many churches. Managing these songs was difficult, as churches typically used material drawn from a number of songbooks, and new publications were released frequently. It became common practice for churches to either create their own songbook, to include songs on a service sheet, or to project the songs using an overhead projector. (Slide projectors were occasionally used in the early days, and today the use of a video projector is more common). All these options required making a copy of the lyrics, an act which was in breach of copyright law.
The same issues arose for church musicians, who needed a collection of music books. Frequently, they resorted to photocopying music, which again is a breach of copyright law.
To undertake this legally would previously have required a church to obtain permission from all the copyright holders, a time-consuming and potentially costly process. CCLI has simplified matters by negotiating agreements with music publishers that enable them to issue licenses giving permission for words or music to be copied in return for a specified fee.