Churches sometimes complain that their live streams have been interrupted due to claims of copyright violations. Why does this happen? U.S. and international laws require authorization to stream or upload copyrighted material online, meaning that churches need permission from song owners to legally stream music during their worship services. 

Fortunately, there are copyright clearinghouses that can provide you with streaming permissions for thousands of songs. CCLI offers a streaming license that covers over 400,000 Christian songs for live streaming. They also offer a CCLI Streaming Plus license that covers the streaming of master recordings of songs, soundtracks, multitracks, and other audio. OneLicense and Christian Copyright Solutions offer similar services for a wide variety of Christian music. 

It’s important to note that even with a church streaming copyright license in place, algorithms for YouTube and Facebook may still block or mute your church’s content. Each platform has its own copyright counter notification process to unblock licensed music.

Fortunately, with tools like Subsplash Live, it’s possible to legally stream your services to your church website and mobile app without the headaches caused by these interruptions, as well as streaming to Facebook, YouTube, and other popular platforms.