Copy Right or Copy Wrong?

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As Director of Communications for the Desert Southwest Conference, I’m often given the opportunity to violate copyright laws. I’m certain no one is submitting content for publicity intending to violate copyright law, but it happens. So anytime I receive an article, I run it through an app called Grammarly, a great grammatical helper and plagiarism checker.

When publicity includes photos, illustrations, or other graphic art for inclusion, I Google reverse image search. Often I’ll find the same image available on multiple sites. If any sites that pop up in the search include a copyright or “license available” mention, I won’t use the image. Today I learned about copyright agents that act on behalf of others to pursue claims on images the agent previously loaded onto “free images” sites so that the agent can then catch people or organizations using their images without permission and pressure them into paying a fee. That must be why sometimes the same image is available on a free site and on a pay for images site. On those occasions, I don’t use the image.

Rather than using images from a Google search, use one of the sites listed on GCFA’s Ministry Copyright Licensing Consulting recommendations, such as Morguefile or Unsplash. Did you know United Methodist Churches can also use images from The UMC Media Library for free?

Many of our churches have music directors that know how to navigate music copyright laws. Thanks to apportionment giving, every Desert Southwest Conference church and fellowship has a CCLI Church Copyright License and a CCLI Streaming License. But those licenses don’t cover EVERY song out there. It definitely doesn’t cover video recordings from YouTube or using the Master recording of a song. Click here to learn what the two licenses actually cover.

Please share this article with anyone that is creating your church’s social media, newsletters, or website content and find additional Copyright guidance resources on the Commission on Communication webpage at https://dscumc.org/communications.

Christina Dillabough serves as director of communications for the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. This article is reprinted with permission from the conference website.