Legal Letters from the USCCB
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,180
    It’s hard to give a precise number because there are multiple entities involved. That said, at least from the usccb side, this is how it was explained to me:

    The common rate of royalties in ecclesiastical publishing is 10%.

    They consider submissions as 50% music and 50% the text which it sets. Since they only own rights to the 50% text part, really that 10% rate only applies to half of the music.

    Of that 10%, half is supposed to go to the composer, the other half to the text holders. So in reality, they are taxing the music somewhere in the vicinity of 2.5 or 5% depending on how you look at it. That is a very small amount in the grand scheme of things.

    The major fly in the ointment where this policy is concerned, is that it does not account for music that the composer wishes to give away for free. I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free if for no other reason, then it is a ton of work for them and the operation of their office is dependent on these small royalties to operate. The laborer deserves their wage. I was told, however, that they are working on a policy to specifically address this particular issue.

    I think it might be fair to have to pay a small one time fee to have your piece reviewed, but if it meets all the proper requirements, and you are not selling it after that, then you should be able to give it away for free. (really, you shouldn’t have to pay anything… But if their office is not fully funded by the USCCB budget and they rely on royalties, then perhaps a small fee could be paid to help fund the operations of their office, but it would be one time, and then you would be free to share your work.)

    Of course, everything that I’ve mentioned above does not take into account fees you may get from ICEL, for instance. And the entire system is currently predicated on the kickback of royalties at least semi annually. Ironically, I had been charging for my psalms and had recently decided to release them all for free… Now after they get approved, I will have to start charging for them again. At least a very nominal amount.
    Thanked by 2Abbysmum tomjaw
  • ContinuousbassContinuousbass
    Posts: 374
    This is all very very highly discouraging.
    Too complex for someone who composes but is not a business person. This is definitely NOT acceptable, a big demerit for USCCB.
    Thanked by 5Liam CHGiffen Abbysmum tomjaw Chant_Supremacist
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,237
    I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free if for no other reason, then it is a ton of work for them and the operation of their office is dependent on these small royalties to operate.


    Please, may I get out my little violin.

    I am sorry but those who make their work freely given simply should not be treated like this.

    Thanked by 7Liam CHGiffen Abbysmum ServiamScores tomjaw LauraKaz Chant_Supremacist
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free
    and i am uncomfortable composing music to their text unless they pay me up front… my fee is about $500 for a finished minute of music. And of course royalties for publication.

    For hymnody its a flat $400 fee for the first verse and $25 for each additional verse.
    Thanked by 3Liam tomjaw Chant_Supremacist
  • tandrews
    Posts: 207
    my fee is about $500 for a finished minute of music.


    Is this a common way to pay composers? Genuinely curious, I don't know anything about this!
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    @tandrews

    Unfortunately, many composers are driven by their muse and have no sense of their creative value (business model), and wind up being like van gogh and cutting off their ear and living under mental anguish. I wholeheartedly support their thinking! (Clarification… ONLY, not giving things away for free.) No composer should be giving things away! It cheapens the craft… that is why most of the music (that has been created for the church in the past few decades) is cheap crap.

    Most unfortunately, I dont think the crats are concerned with quality of compositions and will probably hand out the “right to publish” no matter if the music is fitting for the liturgy or not. I may be wrong, but once the cattle is on the truck, it’s just another pittins for a pound. (Hence my reference to the Kiss of Judas)

    Once in a while I do offer my work to the public gratis, (a fugue here, a hymn there) but 98% of my work must be licensed (which is paying me per performance or a printing (publishing).

    The media industry pretty much has a monopoly on composers who do it for a living. It used to be patrons who BELIEVED IN and supported artists (overall category for musicians), but that model was made extinct, especially by the 501 3c mentality. Also BMI and ASCAP are huge in the biz and money of music.

    The church USED TO BE a patron of the fine arts, especially music… Palestrina, Victoria, Morales, Byrd, Lotti, etc.) when they required the best for the liturgy and supported artists to provide for it both in composition and execution… but the conciliar iconoclasm has ripped out the high altar of sacred music along with the rest if it.

    (Stepping down off soapbox now…)
    Thanked by 2Abbysmum tomjaw
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,193
    Is this a common way to pay composers? Genuinely curious, I don't know anything about this!

    Francis is obviously being sarcastic here. But the rates are not terribly far off, though commissions aren't normally calculated by the minute. If a commissioner wants a text set, that's a reasonable request. But the USCCB is not in the habit of paying people to set their texts.
    Thanked by 3Abbysmum tomjaw Chant_Supremacist
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    @JeffreyQuick
    Francis is obviously being sarcastic here.
    the sarcasm is alone directed at the beaurocrata. (from here forward, crats) My rates are real, and I am always ready to consider a commission. Don’t fool yourselves… look at the price of an oil painting by any artist worth his salt. Musicians fool themselves because they work in the non tangible art of music and performance.
    Thanked by 2Abbysmum tomjaw
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    "I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free if for no other reason, then it is a ton of work for them and the operation of their office is dependent on these small royalties to operate."

    THAT is absolutely appalling. It also makes the issue of simony clearer to those with open eyes. (It would appear to me that they screwed up with their seeking of advice from counsel. The fact pattern of composers giving away music for free should have been part of the givens that they wished to accommodate rather than wish away because the administrative burden of enforcement was not worth the hassle.) If someone asked Pope Leo XIV a question about that in a public forum, I can't imagine he'd give assent to it as a worthy framework.

    Thanked by 5CHGiffen Abbysmum tomjaw LauraKaz Chant_Supremacist
  • DrJS
    Posts: 10
    I like the idea of a large-scale petition or perhaps a curated collection of letters explaining the reality of church music in the 21st century and the need for better compositions and the freedom to make them.
    In the 20th century, published music came from a publishing house that offered music twice annually. This publishing house would acquire all needed permissions and incorporate fees into the cost of the product. Some legacy publishing houses still do good work, and I’ve worked with one of them. There are real advantages to having a team for editing, legal, and publicity.
    However, in the 21st century, self-publishing is a reality of daily life in every area of media. Those of us in the parish are responding to the needs of our churches in real time, and most of the approved published materials for Psalms, acclamations, and English Masses are very badly written. I find much of Catholic music so bad that it feels disgusting and degrading to be forced to sing it.
    Here are some possible solutions:
    1. Allow for status of “Composer of Good Standing in the Catholic Church,” contingent on submission of a portfolio that demonstrates your ability to take the approved text and set it to music. You pay an annual fee, promise to use only approved texts, and periodically submit your continued work for review.
    2. The office is funded in some way other than royalties. I have no idea what their budget is, but is there a dollar amount a donor could give to loose the chains of the composers?

    Thanked by 3Abbysmum tomjaw Chant_Supremacist
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    I find much of Catholic music so bad that it feels disgusting and degrading to be forced to sing it.
    yes

    Allow for status of “Composer of Good Standing in the Catholic Church,” contingent on submission of a portfolio that demonstrates your ability to take the approved text and set it to music. You pay an annual fee, promise to use only approved texts, and periodically submit your continued work for review.
    no

    For one:

    Those who compose for the TLM will not be included in that category.

    This also supports a thinking contrary to religion.
    Thanked by 3davido Abbysmum tomjaw
  • davido
    Posts: 1,150
    Who knows an investigative journalist? Let's get some articles out there and make this nonsense hit the news cycle
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • davido
    Posts: 1,150
    I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free if for no other reason, then it is a ton of work for them and the operation of their office is dependent on these small royalties to operate.


    This is basically simonaic extortion all in the interest of protecting their own job.
    Thanked by 3francis Abbysmum tomjaw
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    This is basically simonaic extortion all in the interest of protecting their own job.
    and blatant black and white admittance of the fact

    Todays Gospel reading in part from the new cal

    Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
    For as the lightning that lighteneth from under heaven shineth unto the parts that are under heaven, so shall the Son of man be in his day.
    And they will say to you: See here, and see there. Go ye not after, nor follow them.
    And he said to his disciples: The days will come when you shall desire to see one day of the Son of man. And you shall not see it.
    Thanked by 2Abbysmum tomjaw
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 590
    I was told explicitly that they are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free if for no other reason, then it is a ton of work for them and the operation of their office is dependent on these small royalties to operate.


    Which is why it is unfortunate that they expanded the definition of GIRM-mandated review items to include Responsorial Psalms... they made more work for themselves, while not providing a structure for how to move forward in any reasonable manner. Mary has been telling me for years now that they're "just about" to come up with a policy for how to handle free distribution.

    I've never had an issue with Mass Ordinaries needing to have the stamp of approval, but they've opened themselves up to so much work to require the same for Psalm settings...
    Thanked by 3tomjaw CHGiffen Chant_Supremacist
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    The cock-up over free compositions that conform in good faith with the texts will eventually breed profound disrespect - to the point of contempt - for the policy. A policy that breeds such is usually a sign of a policy that should be withdrawn to at least include bona fide safe harbors BEFORE being implemented. (The great thing about safe harbors is that you get to assert jurisdiction for your purpose, but you avoid getting out out over your skies in enforcement and remain able to reserve your fire for bad actors.)

    In my professional life over decades, I was tasked with the development of - lots, to use professional jargon - of policies AFTER taking care to engage facts-on-the-ground, in a way not entirely unsimilar from the more formal methods used by our myriad securities & other regulators to draft policies and seek comment (sometimes, multiple rounds of comment) thereon so that the policy purposes and facts were better matched.

    The mind reels.

    The longer factual arc here is that the world where the offerings of major commercial (regardless of notional "non-profit" status) publishers for the Ordo Missae and the Lectionary/psalter have automatic purchase - the dominant cage, as it were - on the loyalty of the customer base is . . . in hospital. (It's a little early to have Haley Ozment deliver his "I see dead people" line, but in this case the patient doesn't yet realize it's in hospital and is currently relying on inertia to stay alive.) The Pandemic + demographic turnover broke the continued plausibility of the dominance of the dominant cage. The policy was clearly written on behalf of the dominant cage and to actively discourage anything other than the dominant cage from thriving, because the dominant cage is what the bureaucrats are familiar with and the human condition is to prefer what one is familiar with.
    Thanked by 4davido CHGiffen francis Abbysmum
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I don’t disagree.

    Honestly this would be a good thing for the Pillar.
    Thanked by 6davido Liam tomjaw CHGiffen francis Abbysmum
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,180
    As I said, I was told they were formulating a policy to help address this. They recognize the fact that there is a need to accommodate such sharing. Heaven only knows what the result will be. But I'm told it is in the works. (Check back in 2034, lol)

    TBH, the zoom call that I had was a good discussion (went much better than I anticipated, given the circumstances) but this was one area where I was taken aback.

    "Composers should increase the sacred store of music" is an explicit directive, and yet there are bureaucratic impediments to this of their own making. That said, as it was explained to me, they are burdened by canon law, and are, in a certain sense at least, also trying to make the best of it. From their perspective, legally (canon law) they cannot just allow unregulated use. The natrual import of that is that they must therefore regulate it. But if I understand things correctly, they can barely manage the current case load. So then throwing wide the portals to every TD&H who submitted free settings of dubious quality would totally sink the ship. And they would have to do all that labor without any subsidy to support all the necessary work.

    I'm not excusing or claiming that any of this has to be this way. It seems simple enough to pre-approve any setting that matches the text faithfully. And as my wife observed, it would seem quite plausible that AI could do a lot of the heavy lifting where review is concerned these days. It could at least flag areas of interest and speed the whole thing up.

    By the same token, there are so many people out there who don't give a flying flip about being proper or accurate. The day of our call, she told me she had just that morning sent back the same psalm setting for the third time, because of all the errata that the composer refused to fix. Stupid people like that (sorry, not sorry) bog the whole system down.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Abbysmum
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    That's what a safe harbor for bona fide compliant non-commercial texts would be for... and the concept is not limited to Anglospheric common law cultures because it's a feature of statutory and regulatory law around the world.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_harbor_(law)

    ServiamScores: just to be clear, no attitude whatsoever on my part is directed at you. And am pretty sure the same goes for everyone else participating in this thread.

    Thank you kindly for your service.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen davido Abbysmum
  • ContinuousbassContinuousbass
    Posts: 374
    Do they have a plan in the works to handle AI-composed settings? At the moment AI is topping Billboard's Country music chart.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Abbysmum
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    Lol… Mr Liam and Master Serviam… you have great ways of saying what a lot of us might think if we weren't running away so fast. I don’t even know why I am still in this boiling pot since i turned off the stove a couple of decades ago.
    Thanked by 2Liam tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210

    The day of our call, she told me she had just that morning sent back the same psalm setting for the third time, because of all the errata that the composer refused to fix. Stupid people like that (sorry, not sorry) bog the whole system down


    I would simply not approve the setting and send a notice to diocesan offices to that affect.
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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,180
    I would simply not approve the setting
    she didn't. And that's the point. It was the third time she told the composer no, and even sent the proper text for the composer to make the necessary changes, which they were evidently incapable of doing.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I think you’re misunderstanding. I am aware that she didn’t approve the setting. They should have refused categorically. This person does not care and will do whatever. So at this point, the conference should put it on the local ordinary to set up a review if and when the composer brings the setting into compliance. The second draft that was filled with things that the conference already said needed to be corrected should have resulted in a notice that this setting has X, Y, and Z mistakes, it is not approved, do not use it, we will assert our rights if it is used.

    I’m so sick and tired of church people putting up with nonsense back and forths that waste everyone’s time; usually the church employee loses a lot of time and gets angry, and the offender gets whatever is desired.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores tomjaw
  • ContinuousbassContinuousbass
    Posts: 374
    It’s pretty offensive for a composer to ignore an errata coming from the reviewer. [apparently offensive comment regarding synodality removed].
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,180
    This has nothing to do with "synodality". (I do hope you're speaking tongue in cheek...) Let's not muddy the waters here.
  • ContinuousbassContinuousbass
    Posts: 374
    OK???
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    It wasn’t offensive it was just confusing.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • ContinuousbassContinuousbass
    Posts: 374
    It was more of a remark about how the presently existing music "synod" is entirely within that USCCB office, and probably owes to my experience being musical as a parishioner rather than ecclesiastical as it is the bishops' office. I'm still stunned and disheartened by the fact that they got laywery on you. (???) And to owe a fine? Where's the go-fund-me page?
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Elmar
    Posts: 514
    Just out of curiosity, are there national conferences of bishops with a non-simoniac relation to their vernacular translations? (Jeffrey Quick October 22)
    In the Netherlands, a website has been launched in 2021 by the diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam with the integral Mass texts for all days: https://www.tiltenberg.org/missaal/ (the name refers to the location of the seminary at the time) and has also been promoted elswhere in church province (e.g., the church music courses in the diocese of Rotterdam) to be used when putting together a worship aid for your parish - so that you can be sure your text is OK.
    There is no copyright mention whatsoever on the entiere website (at least I haven't found any yet) except for the statement:
    Concordat cum editione approbata
    Harlemi, 2 octobris 2021
    +Johannes Hendriks
    in memoria Ss. Angelorum Custodum
    Thanked by 4Liam CHGiffen davido Jeffrey Quick
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,089
    That website of De Tiltenberg presents the Dutch liturgical texts illegally. The concordat cum editione approbata doesn’t function as a permit to publish texts that are protected by copyright.

    There is a complex legal dispute about that website, because the bishop that has individually approved of its publication, is also a member of the Bishops’ Conference that holds the copyright.

    All commercial publishers that want to use the liturgical texts have to get into a license agreement with Liturgical Office of the Bishops’ Conference of the Netherlands, represented by the Nationale Raad voor Liturgie. Only then an individual bishop can provide a concordat cum editione approbata and subsequently an imprimatur.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Elmar
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,193
    Those who compose for the TLM will not be included in that category.

    All of the words for the TLM are PD. OK, I won't swear to every word of the 1955 Holy Week. And one could sing a newly-written Latin text. But essentially, the bishops have no legal leg to stand on in approving a PD text. Which would make any attempt to do so entertaining, to say the least.
    Thanked by 4Liam irishtenor CHGiffen tomjaw
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    Yes, one long-term practical effect of the policy may be to incentivize the use of the ginormous sources of Latin texts in the public domain and then recitation rather than musical settings for newer mandatory texts. Had someone asked my counsel on this policy in the draft stage, I would have felt duty-bound to include that among my observations. If no one already provided that observation during the draft stage, there was a failure in the quality of counsel and questions put to counsel. It's not an obscure or abstruse factual angle.

    A policy whose enforcers "are uncomfortable with people giving music away for free" is a policy that is just so many shades of fail.
    Thanked by 4irishtenor davido CHGiffen tomjaw
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    Those who compose for the TLM will not be included in that category.
    I was actually pointing out that the COMPOSER would not be able to “be in good standing” because he is “standing” in the shadow of the TC MOTU. (Not so much for using the Latin.)

    Which brings us to ANOTHER question. If one composes a new Ordinary or Proper, (for a TLM using the ancient Latin texts) will they be required to receive permission to use during a TLM???

    This entire affair goes way beyond simoniac, and it really is “your term here” (I have a few descriptors), which is to limit the content and style of music that can be employed at the sacred liturgy decided by the personnel of local Bishop conferences.

    Am I missing something?
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 71
    Things can be quite simple when no bishops are involved and no licensing entity that operates as a self-financing profit center.

    The translations into the international language Esperanto have been directly approved by the Vatican for worldwide use and the texts are copyrighted by the Internacia Katolika Unuiĝo Esperantista (IKUE). For my two part mass setting in double counterpoint of this translation, I had simply asked IKUE for permission and quickly obtained it.

    Considering that I once failed obtaining permission to set an official German translation to music, I will stick to Latin and (preferably) Esperanto for future mass settings.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I had a draft comment about what Steven mentioned.

    The lack of a copyright notice goes against the wishes of the Apostolic See. I am almost certain that it is illegal. But that they have failed to display a copyright notice does not mean that the Dutch national council on the liturgy would be unable to have their rights vindicated. And really, they should insist that the text display a proper license.

    AELF is generous but there are copyright mentions everywhere that AELF texts are reproduced (and it’s not the French episcopal conference: the Francophone world is obviously too large for France to direct everything as a whole, even if in practice Africans don’t have their own lectionary like what happened in the Anglosphere). But you have to write for them. They don’t make blanket terms easy to access. Neither do the Dutch sadly.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,180
    Xopheros, I confess my perpetual bemusement with your promotion of Esperanto. I love your music, (we sing your Tollite Portas and Missa Tribus Vocibus every year) but for the life of me, I cannot fathom why anyone would even look in Esperanto's general direction when we have our Latin heritage, which is the international liturgical language, and the language for which mountains of irreproachable music of highest artistic value has already been composed. It is the literal mother tongue of the church. To me, Esperanto feels like a cheap knockoff, which is, I suppose, a fitting analogue given the broader liturgical wars.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw OMagnumMysterium
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 71
    @ServiamScores Latin is problematic in many ways and as a lingua franca it is a particular problematic choice because it is so complicated that even after many years of learning it at school it is difficult to freely formulate a sentence that is grammatically correct (Was is it "sequimus" or was it a deponens? Is "mercatus" or "cantus" o- or u-declantion? etc). In medieval times this was not such an issue because the aristocracy did not have to work for their living and thus had plenty of time to learn Latin, but today most can't be bothered to learn Latin. And I agree with Josef Ratzinger that its use in the old rites alienated the faithful from the church. This does not mean that there are circumstances where Latin makes sense, e.g. in monastries with a community of patres or for a group of TLM enthusiasts. And for a limited set of texts (like the common prayers and the mass ordinary) the language is of secondary importance because everybody knows the texts in their vernacular language by heart.

    Concerning musical settings, however, I indeed generally prefer Latin over English texts, but this is because here in Germany the English language is closely tied to popular culture (all pop music is in English), so it is difficult to avoid the impression of profanity for English texts, but this association obviously will not be made by native English speakers.

    The mathematician Peano experimented with "Latine sine flexione" as a scientific lingua franca, but this never took off. Esperanto is the best solution I know that is easy to learn (admittedly only for Europeans) and has a consistent grammar. IMO consistency and simplicity are a feature, not a bug. And as a natural scientist, I really am fascinated by the many IMO brillant design decisions of Esperanto.

    Your mileage may vary, of course, and I am aware that this is not the appropriate forum to discuss language issues. I only replied in order to explain my considerations, not to start a flame war about languages.
    Thanked by 2a_f_hawkins ServiamScores
  • francis
    Posts: 11,175
    Your mileage may vary, of course, and I am aware that this is not the appropriate forum to discuss language issues. I only replied in order to explain my considerations, not to start a flame war about languages.
    on the contrary, language is primal to this forum. Sacred music has ALWAYS been in Latin. The departure is cataclysmic in nature.
    Thanked by 3stulte tomjaw ServiamScores
  • stulte
    Posts: 358
    Latin is problematic in many ways and as a lingua franca it is a particular problematic choice because it is so complicated that even after many years of learning it at school it is difficult to freely formulate a sentence that is grammatically correct


    That's because most Latin courses are garbage and most Latin "teachers" are incompetent. And if you (any of you reading this) think that's too harsh, then tell me how many people you know who are fluent in it.

    While Latin is no more difficult to learn than most other languages, it has been taught like a code to be broken rather than a tool for communication in recent centuries. Experience has amply shown that this doesn't lead to fluency. Students centuries ago were given the opportunities to be immersed in the language with very simple materials both written and spoken which isn't typically done today.

    I've studied Esperanto myself in the past and can understand the appeal, but it's no substitute for Latin in terms of its historical and cultural impact and importance.

    As for the issue of getting licenses for using musical settings of the vernacular texts of the Liturgy being onerous and costly without need, perhaps this is one more sign that we need to stop it with using the vernacular in the Liturgy and return to our traditional use of Latin?
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    Ørberg supplemented by Collins with more input and opportunities for oral output along the lines of what the Veterum Sapientiae folks do is what needs to happen for Latin teaching to be effective.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    Ørberg is what I learned in college, and it's a good methodology.

    Then again, my Latin professor and his wife (also in the Classics department and expecting at the time) were planning on raising their firstborn to speak Latin as its mother's tongue. Or at least so he said at the time. (This was ... during the Carter Administration, let's just say.)
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