Good News! 
United Methodist Communications 
to Broker Video Licenses

Video licenses will once again be available to United Methodist churches at fees near those that Motion Pictures Licensing Corporation (MPLC) offered through umbrella plans before it joined with Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) in early 2000.  The cost of a video license is now based on membership, and licenses will once again be offered through an umbrella plan. This means churches can join together as one entity* to purchase their video license.  For example, cooperative parishes, yoked parishes, multi-point charges, or congregations which are, in some way, formally linked can get one video license. 

UMCom offers the licenses. They can be obtained by calling the toll free customer service line at 1-888-346-3862. 

The fee schedule is as follows:
Membership          Annual Fee
1-49............................ $45
50-199........................ $75
200-499...................... $150
500+........................... $200

As you can see, this will help the small-membership congregations that were hit hard when MPLC joined with CCLI in 2000.

Do You Need a License?  Probably, these rules haven’t changed…

If you show videos at your church, conference office, Sunday school class, day care center, etc., under the Federal Copyright Act you must have a video license.  If you rent or lend your facility to other groups (a Boy Scout troop, AA, an Irish language class, etc.) who show videos you must have a video license.  This applies to non-profit as well as for-profit organizations, whether you charge admission or not, whether you show a short 2-minute clip or an entire 2-hour movie, and whether you are showing the video to 2 people or 200.  You must have a video license.  Buying or renting a video does not give you the right to publicly exhibit that video.  Pre-recorded videos are for home/private use only, which by law is a “normal circle of family and its social acquaintances.”  Violation of the Federal Copyright Act constitutes copy-right infringement subjecting you to fines of at least $500 for each illegal showing.

An exception to the licensing rules would be videos produced by the United Methodist Church.  These tapes are meant to be viewed by groups.  However, we have a large selection of videos in our library and the majority of tapes are not produced by the United Methodist Church.  Also, buying a video from EcuFilm or a similar distributor does not guarantee that the video is produced by the United Methodist Church.  All churches should have a video license and UMCom has made it much easier
to get one.

*For questions about what constitutes an “entity” call the free customer service line at 1-888-346-3862

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Rocky Mountain Conference of 
the United Methodist Church
6110 Greenwood Plaza Blvd.
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
303-733-3736 ext 100
1-800-536-3736 ext 100
Netta@rmcumc.com