Recording A Compilation Project...$$$$

[Milestoneworship]

My band is currently recording a compilation project of about half original worship songs and half cover songs. How much can we expect to spend for licenses to record these songs? I'm looking at about five songs (mostly from the Passion recordings-Tomlin, Crowder, Hughs) that we'll need to get licensing for, and I'm trying to work out a budget with no surprises.

Thanks for the help!

[free_by_grace]

Our church has done a similar compilation, and they were able to pay royalties of I think 0.95 /song /cd, so it was fairly manageable if you sell the CDs at a reasonable price. I believe they aimed to save the money made on the sale for another cd, but it has been a while. As an aside we have another team who has been working on the same type of compilation, and Lord-willing it will be released later this year.

[alhilgendorf]

Did you mean .95 cents or .095 cents? I believe mechanical royalties are only .095 cents. Check with CCLI. Even though they deal with print music I think that they can work limited mechanical (recording) deals too.

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
The statutory rate is $.095 ... that's nine and 1/2 cents, per song, per unit. So, for one cover song ... 1,000 CD's ... that's $95 for that song.

You'll need to contact the publishers directly (you can usually get their contact info via CCLI's Authorized Publisher List) and request a "mechanical license".

You'll basically need to fax/email a document with this info:

ALBUM TITLE
SONG TITLE
PLAYING TIME of SONG (this is because once you exceed around 5 minutes or so ... the royalty rate is based on the minutes, not the flat rate)
RELEASE DATE (estimate)
# OF UNITS TO BE DUPLICATED

Note, if a song has ever been recorded before, they cannot say "no", so you don't have to worry about a publisher declining your request for a license.

Another option is to outsource your licensing to Susan Fontaine Godwin's company, Church Copyright Administration. (http://www.churchca.com/)