Rev. Bob Janis-Dillon began his work in the new role of ‘Congregational Connections Lead Officer’ by bringing together a diverse group of Unitarians from across the UK to talk about the challenges of copyright law as it applies to services. I was asked to speak for a few minutes at the start to introduce the subject, always a tall order, because the honest answer to the question “Why am I confused about this?” is “It’s very confusing!” Nevertheless, I do feel it’s very important. We want our services to be as engaging and contemporary as possible, but at the same time, we have moral duty to respect creators’ ownership of their work. Personally I have found that very often, poets and authors will grant permission for their work to be used – but they will also always be very grateful that you asked first before using it.

Copyright law as it applies to live worship online is still catching up with the real world. We discussed whether it makes a difference if you’re live on Facebook, YouTube, Zoom (or all of them?), whether music from CDs or online videos can be played in the service (only if it’s public domain, which isn’t the same thing as ‘publicly available’, or you have the copyright holder’s permission) and how copyright applies to hymn lyrics and readings. By the end of the session, it’s probably fair to say we hadn’t answered every single question, but by putting our heads together, we had answered a lot of them, and hopefully reassured a few people about what is and isn’t legal.