Group includes a variety of music in our programs. For songs we do not own, we are not at liberty to give churches any special permissions outside of the programs in which they were included.
Group-owned songs:
- If the copyright for a song says “© [YEAR] Group Publishing, Inc.” then Group owns all rights to the song as outlined in the Music Copyright 101
- If the copyright says “arrangement © [YEAR] Group Publishing, Inc.” then Group owns all the rights to our expression of the song, but not the Musical Work (composition and lyrics). These arrangements have been made using songs in the Public Domain. This means you can make a NEW arrangement and a NEW recording of your own version of the song without Group’s permission, but any use of Group’s Master Sound Recording, Music Video, or Sheet Music would require Group’s permission.
Other Publishers’ songs:
- If the copyright has another name other than Group after the © symbol, then Group is NOT the owner of the Musical Work. We pay royalties to other publishers/songwriters for our use of the song. We DO own the copyrights to our version/recordings of the song, commonly called “covers,” but we cannot grant anyone rights to use our version unless they first secure rights to use the original Musical Work from the owner.