As of January 1, 2017, these two principal providers of hymn and song licensing for mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic communities merged, retaining the One License name. What does this mean for Prelude Music Planner subscribers who reprint or project music covered by these licenses? Those who held only One License may have already noticed that more content is covered than before, especially from copyright holders like OCP Publications, whose works were previously only covered by LicenSing Online. Those who held both licenses will find it less complicated to report usage in one place rather than two.

As of March 17, 2017, LicenSing Online will be removed from the Prelude Music Planner Library Search area (under Copyright Licenses) and from the My Account area. The My Account area will populate the One License license number field with your One License account number or, if you held only LicenSing Online, the account number assigned by One License when the services merged. Remember that it is your administrator’s responsibility to keep your licenses in force and your license information up to date.

This is a good time for a reminder also about the need for One License account holders to report to One License every time you reprint or project a hymn/song element covered by One License. Prelude Music Planner does not “automatically” report for you. We are currently working with One License to improve the ease of reporting hymns and songs from Augsburg Fortress published worship books. It’s also important to remember that One License covers the reproduction only of materials intended for congregational singing (melody and singable harmony), and not the reproduction of choral/vocal music, keyboard/instrumental music, or hymn accompaniments that are not intended for singing.

Questions about copyrights? Sign up for our free, archived webinar “Churches and Copyright: How to Be a Weekend Publisher without Going to Prison”!