Let auto-reporting ease your copyright burden

Let auto-reporting ease your copyright burden

A new system which automatically reports which hymns and songs have been used during a church service has been well received by churches throughout the UK.

‘Auto-reporting removes one of the biggest pain-points facing our licence holders,’ said Rich Burrough of CRE Midlands exhibitors CCLI. ‘We rely on reports from our customers so that royalties can be fairly and accurately distributed to song owners. But we know that it can be a burden and we have long wanted to make it easier to do.’

For the past few years, all reporting has had to be done manually online with churches encouraged to report weekly following their Sunday services.

‘We’re indebted to the many churches who report,’ continued Rich. ‘In the UK, the accuracy (and therefore integrity) of our pay outs is admired by mainstream copyright organisations, some of whom we work in partnership with. But, while most of the time it’s a fairly straightforward process, with a repertoire of 600,000 authorised songs, finding the correct version of a song can sometimes be a time-consuming process. With more than 24,000 UK churches registered with CCLI, plus a similar number of schools and Christian organisations, it’s so important that we get this right, so we’re really pleased to be introducing a better way.’

Now, with Auto-reporting, churches can connect a growing list of participating presentation and planning tools to CCLI’s reporting website – and their reports will be done for them! Auto-reporting is now available through ProPresenter, EasyWorship, MediaShout, Proclaim, OnSong, ChurchTools, SongBeamer, Loop Community’s Prime multitracks app and three free WorshipTools applications – Presenter, Planning and Music Stand. Other popular applications are coming soon.

How you enable Auto-reporting depends on the application you use but is typically as easy as ticking a box within your worship software. Then, as long as the songs in your setlists and service plans include the CCLI song number, they’ll be reported automatically. The best and easiest way to ensure the song number is always present and correct is to use CCLI’s SongSelect to pull in lyrics. Lyrics on SongSelect are now available free to all CCLI Church Copyright Licence holders.

‘Thousands of churches have already enabled Auto-reporting,’ says Rich, who will be at CRE Midlands 2023. ‘I’m looking forward to showing CRE visitors how easy it is, and helping more and more to get started.’

• CCLI are on stand D29 at CRE Midlands 2023

Book your ticket for CRE Midlands 2023 here from as little as £3

Organisations looking to book a stand should contact James Batterbee 0161 250 2306 (E: james@creonline.co.uk) or Carol Malpass 0161 250 2467 (E: carol@creonline.co.uk)

Click to view the latest floorplan and price list for available stands