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Hi,


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5_dzjSIySw

> Something I don't understand about Christian music though: Do they all just
> share each others songs freely? There are like 10 different versions of
> Revelation Song all sung by different musicians. I've noticed this with
> other Christian songs too.

> The king of kings deserves all-original material! ;)

I think the original version of this song was written by Jennie Lee Riddle  
in 2004.

Now, when I clicked on your Youtube link, I got geoblocked because I am  
located in Europe. I know how to circumvent this with VPN, but one can  
wonder whether this is what the king of kings intends or deserves ;).

If you look at how the classical hymns originated, they mostly were  
created by folks who had a paid job, like pastor, organist, or choir lead,  
and were then freely shared and propagated and sung by everyone. I think  
that's how it should be and modern Christian groups try to mimic this idea  
of sharing the gospel. However, they also have to make a living from it.  
So they try to generate revenue from Youtube or other sources as well.  
Understandable.

Over here in Germany we have a state-enforced system called GEMA which  
collects royalties from every computer sale, from every public performance  
of whatsoever. Artists who create something register with GEMA and there  
is some mechanism of how they receive their share from the royalties  
collected by GEMA.

My parish (a confessional Lutheran one in Germany) streams its services  
live on the Internet. We started doing so during the lockdowns, but  
continued doing it afterwards because we are a minitory church with a very  
big catchment area (some have to travel like 2 hours to get to church) and  
not all elderly members make it every Sunday.

Now we have a hymnbook issued by our church that has both the original  
Lutheran hmyns as well as modern songs. When the congregation sings, we  
overlay the lyrics on the video stream. Soon we were contacted by GEMA  
that this is a public performance (of the lyrics) and we need to pay  
royalties. We ended up overlying the lyrics only for the royalty-free  
traditional hymns. Streaming the congregation singing modern songs without  
showing the lyrics was deemed to be allowable without having to pay  
royalties to GEMA :).

There also was a wide discussion about our traditional Christmas fairs.  
The choirs that perform there are deemed to be professional (even if they  
don't ask for money) and hence someone (usually the merchants present at  
the fair) has to pay to GEMA for such performances of "modern" Christmas  
songs. There was a huge political uproar about this about this, because  
the calculation scheme for GEMA on Christmas fairs changed and singing a  
Christmas song at a Christmais fair became freaking expensive. I wonder,  
though, whether it is really necessary to sing "modern" Christmas songs at  
those fairs, we have so many beautiful traditional ones that are entirely  
royalty free ...

There is clash here because the need for artists to receive fair  
remuneration (something every Christian should subscribe to) on the one  
hand, and the wish for the gospel to be shared freely (something also  
every Christian should subscribe to ...).

Cheers!
Tobias


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