OCP often receives questions about music licensing and copyrights. Usually people have questions about printing music in worship aids or livestreaming and recording music published by OCP. But we also receive questions about missals:
- Our missals are still in good shape – can we keep using them past their designated liturgical year?
- Why can’t my parish use Today’s Missal Music Issue longer than one year?
- Can we use old copies of Breaking Bread if we don’t mind the outdated readings?
Here is the short answer: OCP annual missals and music resources are licensed to be used for one year only, so using missals past their liturgical year violates their copyrights. After a resource’s liturgical year has passed, they must be discarded and new resources should be purchased. Parishes that want the same pew books year over year should consider purchasing a hymnal rather than a missal or annual music resource.
So why should a parish care about maintaining the proper permissions for their music resources? Copyrighted works are protected under federal copyright law, and everyone is required to comply with copyright laws – including churches. The United States bishops emphasized this in their document “Sing to the Lord”: “Churches and other institutions have a legal and moral obligation to seek proper permissions and to pay for reprinting of published works when required” (USCCB, Sing to the Lord, 105).
But beyond legal and moral obligation, parishes should care about keeping their missals up to date because it supports liturgical composers and arrangers, ensuring they are paid for their work. If we want the Church to have great liturgical music, we need to support the people making that music.
Thank you for doing your part to enrich our Church’s liturgical music by supporting Catholic artists and those who give them a voice.