The Beginning

It all started when pwarchive.com was asked to remove all its copyrighted praise and worship lyrics from their website. Although all of its content was still "preserved" and was still available through Google cache, there were larger issues at stake.

• Copyrights and marketing surrounding praise and worship music today.
• Church's "endorsement" and [legal/illegal] use of such material.
• Musician's creative lyrical/musical work which results in "worship" songs, and his/her rightful claim and protection of that creative work/property.
• The Christian popular culture/community's need/want/desire for such work [in worship gatherings].
  

These are difficult and sensitive topics to think about, discuss, or come to terms with. Nonetheless, this is the state of the world that we live in, and the nature of the "business". I looked around for answers and resources. There weren't much. I came across a book called "Selling Worship" by Pete Ward, and several websites featuring public domain hymns and worship songs.

Personally saddened at first, I stopped singing/using any copyrighted worship music in our worship service. Since 99.9% of all contemporary Christian worship music are copyrighted, I was left with the good old hymnal. We sang, Amazing Grace, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, It is Well With My Soul, and etc. I quickly came to terms with my (and our relatively young congregation's) limited familiarity with the hymns. And ironically, the hymns that we were familiar with were ones recently popularized by the musicians whose music we no longer sung due the copyright (rather my boycott of).

The boycott (my personal, which may or may not reflect the position of our church) lasted for about a good month and few weeks (we simply ran out of hymns that we knew!). At which point I double checked with our church administration about the current state of our CCLI account, which turned out that we had and were paying for, and went back to [legally] singing the ever so popular and familiar contemporary songs of worship.

I thought about different student organizations and small worship gatherings that may not have the luxury of church sponsored CCLI license. And the fact that when those students gather in their classrooms, project these copyrighted material, to sing and worship together, that there are forces at play such as copyright infringement, enforcement, licensing fees, and etc.

So here we are now. Something is definitely wrong with the state of affairs in worship music today. We cannot pinpoint it or blame anyone (or organization). Maybe it is combination of a lot of things. But one thing is certain. We need an alternative.

I have long been an advocate for Open Source Software (which requires a completely different blog to discuss). I am also very encouraged to see how well received Creative Commons license became, especially among the web community. It only made more and more sense that the alternative to commercially driven "worship" music should be Creative Commons licensed worship music.

It is my hope that this humble beginning can bear fruit, and that it may grow into a grassroots community movement in search for true worship. Worship that does not seek compensation. Worship not measured by record labels, album sales, and dollars. But genuine and authentic worship that springs from the community, resonates amongst us, and overflows to all those around us.

http://ccworshiparchive.googlepages.com/