I’m not gonna mention any names - but...
Have you ever noticed that the lyrics on most praise and worship songs come directly from the Bible? It’s cool to sing scripture. But, wait a minute - isn’t that plagiarism?
David wrote most of the Psalms, right? And today’s songwriters are copying his words, verbatim!
As a radio guy, I need to know who wrote the music and lyrics to the songs we play so we can pay out royalties. Well, why are artists claiming to write the music AND the lyrics? Sure, they wrote the music but the lyrics ...? Not if David wrote them.
Obviously the royalties are not going to go to David’s estate but I don't think the artist should be claiming to be the lyricist. In the 60's the Byrds write the classic rock song “Turn, Turn, Turn” and they credited the song to Ecclesiastes - says so right on the record label.
So what to do with the royalties for the lyrics? Perhaps the artists could donate the royalties to Kingdom building - a food bank, or clothing depot or something like that.
Artistically, aren't they plagiarizing Daivd?
I won’t mention names but does anyone know the area code for Australia?
If a song is word-for-word from a Bible translation, that's not public domain. The original Hebrew might be from David and up for grabs but the English translation is copyrighted by the NIV or NLT or whatever and royalties should be paid to those copyright holders.
ReplyDeleteChurches do (or should) pay royalties for public performances of songs through CCLI. I don't know if CCLI checks to see if lyrics are being used from another copyrighted work (as in lyrics being pulled directly from a Bible translation) but you'd think they should before paying royalties only to the songwriter.