Worship Consultation

The PRS Church Licence has not been reviewed for over 20 years, but the way in which places of worship using music has been evolving. We have therefore reviewed the PRS Church Licence and are replacing it with a new Places of Worship Licence, which is more inclusive as it will be available to all places of worship and will appropriately reflect the use being made of music by religious organisations today. Our aim is to design schemes that is simple for customers to use, one that is inclusive of all faiths and now covers the use of religious buildings as community hubs that host a wide range of activities. 

We are also proposing a new Digital Worship Licence to replace the Limited Online Music Licence (LOML). The LOML is non-sector specific and can be difficult for religious organisations to understand, we have decided to replace the LOML with the new Digital Worship Licence as it will be more user friendly and improve the purchasing experience.  

PRS for Music Grant of Rights:

• The communication to the public of PRS repertoire. 
• The communication to the public of Production Music Sound Recordings. 
• Mechanical rights for MCPS affiliated repertoire. 

The new Places of Worship Licence will continue to cover religious organisations for:

• General music use
• Up to 6 concerts or recitals within the religious building and associated halls 
• Bookshops and cafes will continue to be covered under the licence, provided that they are not a third-party commercially run venture.

This licence doesn’t include: 

• Commercially run third party activities, for example a third party hiring the hall for a fitness class or a concert promoter organising a classical concert. They will need to purchase their own licence from PPLPRS Ltd.

The new Digital Worship Licence will cover religious organisations for: 

•  Streaming worship services, as well as funerals and weddings, on their own website and third-party platforms in video or audio format. 
• Activities associated with worship (outside of the list of excluded activities), such as sharing links to worship services via email, or the occasional meeting associated with worship on third-party platforms such as Zoom or Teams.

CCLI work as a sales agent for PRS for Music. CCLI also works for other copyright licensing organisations such as Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL), to sell licences on their behalf to the Christian community.

PRS for Music licences specifically cover the communication to the public and mechanical rights on behalf PRS and MCPS members. CCLI sells other licences on behalf of copyright licensing organisations, not only PRS, to cover other types of copyright, such as sound recording or making printed copies of sheet music.

The proposal for the new schemes can be found in the consultation document linked above. Responses to the proposal can be made via this link.

Your views are important to us. Your feedback will be used to help us form a comprehensive picture of opinions on the new licences. Feedback will also help us to identify any potential issues or concerns.

Once the consultation period has ended, we will examine all the feedback we have received. A summary of the feedback, along with our response, will be made available on the PRS for Music website. Stakeholders will be notified before the final licences are published.

After business costs, all the licence fees PRS for Music collect are processed, allocated and distributed to the talented music creators that we represent. By purchasing a licence, customers are supporting the future of music by helping to ensure its creators are paid for their work, so that the people who write, perform and record it can continue making the music we all love.

There are several methods to track the music being played in different environments, including the reporting from Churches to CCLI on what music has been used, this allows us to distribute the licence fees collected as accurately and efficiently as possible. 90% of all the money collected goes to the songwriters, composers, and publishers of the works in our licensable repertoire we only deduct our running costs.

Our distributions are normally made four times a year, in April, July, October and December. We aim to include payments in the second quarterly distribution after the event has taken place. For example, music performed in May would be included in the October distribution.