1. Authority for the ICEL to manage the copyright issues with regard to the translation is clearly given in numbered paragraph 2 of Cardinal Arinze’s letter: JVN says it well: “ We are bound to obey Cardinal Arinze in this matter. As Catholics, we are bound to obey his commands.” There should be no doubt, then, that the ICEL is the responsible authority for all of these materials. Cardinal Arinze himself confirmed that.

That is not what Cardinal Arinze said (please read his letter). For instance, Cardinal Arinze specifically says that the organizations are bound to obey copyright law. But ICEL has demanded that the CMAA (for example) take down the Kyrie settings & recordings from their site, even though (as mentioned several times) these are public domain. Even ICEL, itself, has acknowledged that the current Mass ordinaries are public domain. The new translation does not change the words of the Kyrie. It is not hard to see that ICEL is not obeying the Cardinal, but Catholics are bound to. Read his letter. It is on the USCCB website.

2. JVN further states: “ ICEL is threatening people who set a public domain text with a lawsuit.”
a. I have seen no published threat of a lawsuit. Please publish the source if you will be so kind.

In your former post, you said "Should the USCCB grant permission to publish now, they might actually open themselves to lawsuits if any change should take place." That is just false. They've already released the text (do you not admit this?). The converse is true. If you read the correspondence ICEL has had with the CMAA, you will see that they have sent threatening notes. This is wrong.

b. If reference is made to the request that certain materials be removed from a website in accordance with an existing agreement and/or ICEL policies, that seems a fully legitimate request.

No, they need to follow the Cardinal's letter, not work in opposition to Cardinal Arinze and copyright law. That is what they need to do, legally and morally.

c. Regarding whether the new Novus Ordo White Book is in the “Public Domain” please look at it again and read the words at the top of each page. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” by US and international law covers derivative works including musical settings.

As I have already explained several times, that is false. You haven't done your homework. Much of the new translation cannot be copyrighted, because it is already in the public domain.

e. Note that there is no law of any sort that prohibits a person from setting texts. Copyright prohibits the performance, publishing, or sharing that setting with others until approved.

No one is claiming that people are being prohibited from setting the texts. Kindly stay on topic.

Humbug. They don’t care if you write your materials now in preparation for a later release. They merely want you to withhold them from publication until three criteria are met as stipulated on p. 26:

Here's a newsflash: the texts have already been released on the USCCB website! This idea that they "don't want the texts to leak out" and sit there hunting the internet to see if anyone is posting compositions with the text is bogus, and it has been done in a very unfair way. Actually, by watching whom they crack down on, one can easily see their true intentions. For instance, search google for various parts of the new translation, and you will see it has been released on THOUSANDS of internet sites. Yet, ICEL does not crack down on these.

This whole thing would be silly if it weren't so scandalous & calculated.

4. Regarding this entire question of “Pay for Prayer” there has been a large quantity of misinformation posted. Those same ICEL Publication Policies state in several places that any of their work, upon meeting the three criteria listed in 3a-c, may be posted “...on the global computer network commonly known as the Internet without obtaining written or oral permission” provided that several conditions are met, including that there MUST BE NO CHARGE, that ICEL copyright be acknowledged, and that the texts be followed exactly.

You must be new to this issue. The reason for the policy you cite was that (due in large part to groups like the CMAA), ICEL finally bowed to public pressure and made that statement. But a lot of people did a lot of work to get that statement. It would never have happened, except that groups like the CMAA got the word out and ICEL bowed to public pressure. All this happened recently.

5. I received an email today from Jason McFarland, Assistant Editor at ICEL confirming these facts. In his note he included the following:
1. ICEL does not charge royalties for non-commercial (not-for-profit) use of its texts, i.e., as long as a publisher (print, Web, recordings, etc.) does not charge customers for items containing ICEL text...

Please see the answer above; I just answered all the things you seem to be confused about. ICEL was only recently forced into this by public pressure. In other words, they were forced to do what was right because too many honest Catholics found out what they were doing.

The ICEL charges only those who would make a profit from the Mass parts.

This is a remarkable statement! Do you not blush when you type such words?

hi, chonak

One instance would be the fact that ICEL demanded that CMAA take down PUBLIC DOMAIN works (like the Kyrie).

This was specifically condemned by Cardinal Arinze, who said we are to follow the copyright laws.

prstf said: And since the request of the bishops may well be ignored – post on a South Africa server? “workaround”? open rebellion? – the same bishops are forced to use civil law to entreat their flock to obey.

It seems to me that the reverse is true. ICEL has no right to dictate what Catholic composers can or cannot do with a public domain text.

Musicians here are honestly open to share their music, and their goal is not about making money or becoming popuar. They share the same goal as our Pope, keep sacred music in our holy liturgy, because they truly understand that the music is integral part of the litugy. The bottom line is this "are the bishops in US really sharing this view? Are their policy really supporting it?
Or, whether intentionally or unintentionally (I don't
know their intention and it's not our job to judge that, it's God's.), or mistakenly supporting the groups who's goal is making a profit?
If the answer is yes to the latter. They are contraditing the Church, no matter what their paper says, and our Church needs to know about it, how the policy is really affecting music in America.

I don't want to bring all other issues that happen in the past that ugly things happen here among priests, and the Vatican didn't know about it until much later. And the whole world accused our Pope and our Church, not individual priests in US. That's is not justice and serious mistakes done by bishops here. It seems somehow Vatican is not informed details and mistakes happen here in time.

Thank you Jeffrey for all your work. You wouldn't 'wasting your time', if you didn't care about your faith. Instead, you could be making lots of money working for GIA or other profit making groups.

And thanks ,priorstf for all your research. I'm sure you are trying to help, and you did. We are not law makers, we try to follow the law. All the things what ICEL says that you show in your post, I'm sure it looks good, on the "paper." But in reality is it bringing out the good, good for our church and our faith? If bishops in US take sacred music seriously, why they have 'heresies' in hymnals? Why they use church's name, when they don't mean to approve them? Are they just do that to support GIA and OCP? Those musicians in that group can write any kind musical settings, and already have bishops 'approval' even before they actually write the music.

Jules wrote about his disagreement with priorstf:

One instance would be the fact that ICEL demanded that CMAA take down PUBLIC DOMAIN works (like the Kyrie).

This was specifically condemned by Cardinal Arinze, who said we are to follow the copyright laws.

[Disclaimer: I haven't seen the CMAA-ICEL correspondence, so I have to take other people's word on the point that ICEL made the demand.]

While I agree that it's wrong for ICEL to demand that, I don't buy Jules' interpretation that Cdl. Arinze "specifically condemned" it. The Arinze letter was written before the ICEL demand and of course does not mention it. I don't see the letter as even implicitly condemning such an unreasonable demand by ICEL.

I expect that Cdl. Arinze didn't even imagine such overreaching by ICEL when he signed the recognitio letter.

Or is there some other letter by Cdl. Arinze I've overlooked?

I'm sorry to find a tone of ranting in a couple of the posts on this thread, and I hope people will replace it with patient explanation of their differences.

JT:

I am confused:

What is the difference between:

Approved for posting: Lord Have Mercy (old text)
Not Approved for posting: Lord Have Mercy (new text)

The Font??????????

For connoisseurs of absurdity, this must be delectable.

So is this the rationale?

While ICEL asserts no claim over the "Lord, have mercy",
instead deferring to ELLC's claim (which is spurious),
ICEL claims rights over the "new texts ICEL submitted to CDWDS" as a group,
and thus claims rights over the Kyrie as an excerpt of the "new texts"?
Brilliant.

Obviously you can tell I'm straining to discover some semblance of surface rationality in this.

So what's stopping CMAA from rewriting the Mass Ordinary web page to separate the unchanging texts from the changing ones, label the Kyrie and Agnus as "unchanging texts", and enable the links accordingly?

I'm sorry, but I really don't see the point fighting over the little details of their policies and how it's written among ourselves. In this country, I understand that if you think the law was not applied justly, you can appleal to the supreme or higher level. If US bishops' policies we don't think is fair and beneficial to our church and seem to bring out the outcome that is against to what our Church desires, there should be a way we can voice ourselves to the Higher level. All the things I've seen so far what bishops in US have done in the recent past, I'm not sure I can really trust their policies. I think we need to focus on what we can for the future of the sacred music especially with new settings and all. I pray that many good composers write beautiful music for the new translations, and many parishes will experience sacredness in our liturgy as our Lord intended.