From a Religious Perspective: While I understand the need to support oneself not everyone in the Catholic World has the means to spend money on resources. Free Chant Resources such as CCWatershed before and Gregobase for Example, have been invaluable to our community when we dont have money to buy liturgical books that can become very expensive. And a pay wall is just not something we are able to commit to. I think there has to be balance. If everything had a paywall there would be a lot of people unable to take advantage of resources. On the other hand I understand the need for individual composer to protect their music. But just to remember that no everyone in the Catholic World is able to contribute to such things, and so it is valuable to maintain free sources in places here or there.

There is a weird anti-capitalism bias on this board.

Not an anti-capitalist bias, but an IP-sceptical bias.

For you newbies out there, Austrian economist Jeffrey Tucker was managing editor of our journal Sacred Music from 2006 to 2014, and he definitely left a strong imprint on our organizational culture. You aren't going to find anyone more capitalist. But there's a strain in libertarianism that regards intellectual property as something that only exists because the State created it, that it's a literal privilege ("private law"). I'm not so much concerned with what "should be" as what IS, and in a world filled with people profiting from the law, I very much like getting my 2¢ as a composer.

As Catholics, we also have the issue of simony to address. Performing rights organizations don't collect for performance in the liturgy, which to me is right and just. But a capitalist would want that money. We complain about USCCB copyrights, and I agree that the texts of the liturgy should be free for all to use in the liturgy. But shouldn't that labor be protected? For that matter, how many of us have copied permanently out of print but technically in-copyright music? "Let he who is without sin..."

I've made my own music available for download as a kind of desperate Hail Mary pass of my career. There is little market for Latin-texted liturgical music that requires a moderately-competent choir. If I put it out there, it increases the chances of use in a concert, and BMI payments for one performance far outstrip any mechanical royalties.

And as a former librarian, I see digital propagation as a strategy for preservation, and preservation of liturgical music has been...not good.

Trentonjconn, since you asked about the Kyriale scores, they are available individually from CMAA. All the pieces in "The Parish Book of Chant" can be downloaded as individual PDF scores, and demo recordings are on-line.

See https://churchmusicassociation.org/pbc1

The Kyriale scores are available from CMAA. All the pieces in "The Parish Book of Chant" can be downloaded as individual PDF scores, and demo recordings are on-line.

Beautiful, exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.

I can appreciate the upset in many of the posts here. May I observe though that:
1. Circumstances appear to have forced CCW’s hand. There is no reason to doubt that CCW/JO’s goal has always been to keep CCW content free-to-use for the good of the church (and in particular to help the many musicians out there who have no/limited budget).
2. The overall principle of charging for access is not unjust.
3. One has the sense that this been introduced in a hurry, again perhaps from perceived necessity. This is not an organisation with lots (if any?) staff and resources. As such, can we not assume for now that CCW/JO are yet to work through all the implications, and as such any wider injustices that may or may not flow from this decision are inadvertent? Might they very well get remediated in due course (eg via some content being free to access)?

JO has obviously poured huge amounts of his time and energy into this - and other related projects - for the good of the church. JO must of all people be enormously disappointed that CCW has not been able to keep going as a completely free-to-use resource. As one who has found CCW very helpful I would like to express my gratitude here that CCW, JO and other contributors at least tried to make this free-to-use and, for a good long while, succeeded.

Frankly, maybe my standards are too high, but if you work in the church even in a nonprofit that is not officially Catholic and is independent of a diocese, a religious order, a society of apostolic life etc., then you should be far less hasty about things, doubly so when I'm already asked to filter my thoughts (not only because of charity, but because perception of tone or being "nice" matters). I feel like we should not have to beg, and as I've said multiple times: Jeff has burned enough bridges that putting (former) contributors and also users in a position to come contact him, who absolves himself of all responsibility, is really not workable.

What Jeff has told us so far is not a change in circumstances, but a change in value judgement. According to the blog entry, Jeff and the board have decided it was unjust for a few to pay for access for everyone.

right, which, like anything else in the church, is already how it is, and it's the same with simialr projects, but people have also donated time, effort, and resources to CCW.

Yes I am serious, contemporaryworship92. The hints are there about increasing financial strain - “since 2006, American prices have gone up significantly” and “We have no endowment; we have no major donors; we run no advertisements; we have no savings.” If you are a charity trustee those two things add up to a serious problem you cannot just sit on.

I appreciate the post leads with a value judgment about the many people who use the site without donating. Certainly that is unfortunate and, as I say, I’m not trying to belittle the genuine upset here.

A properly run charity

But is CCWatershed a charity?

Even the Divinum Officium folks that have even more of a shoestring operation can figure out their hosting costs and a) figure out how to get them down and b) not change the whole model on a dime (lol?)

I was a contributor whose (very few, to be fair) articles remain published, and my bio still lives on the site. I wasn't notified of the decision, either in deliberation, or prior to public announcement. I admire with gratitude what CCW has contributed to the sacred music landscape, and it's unquestionably significant. The "meta" mission is laudable.

I also spent a decade in executive leadership in a nonprofit (unrelated to sacred music).

I'd like to know who is on the board. I'd like something more than the 990-N (2025 is available via the IRS, and the organization remains in good standing). And yes, I'd like to know where the dollars are spent. Granularly. I practically ran a nonprofit. Choosing to operate as a nonprofit demands transparency, regardless of scale. The board composition. Basic financials. Any donor ought to be able to review these. How else can we decide where to direct our charity?

I wish everyone involved well, and I pray that God's will be done. CCW has been a true blessing to sacred music in recent decades. It would be lamentable to see it fade away in a poorly executed administrative decision, whether born of genuine hope, desperation, ignorance, or any other motive or possible shortcoming.

The old data available on candid.org for 2006-2012 is interesting: in one year donations surpassed $500k. If I'm reading that form right, most of the revenue went to salaries, contract labor, and other compensation, and probably that's reasonable when the group's main activity was in producing videos. After 2010, income from publishing rose but donations fell off, so spending on salaries declined to around $90k in 2012.

That's a massively larger operation than I would have anticipated. Is 2012 the most recent data we have?

Yes. They don’t have a full Form 990 after that point (2012).

Shoot even my parish music budget demands granularity. In ordinary circumstances so long as the money can be spent, the request is approved: I’ve never personally made any ridiculous requests, I keep receipts etc. But if I don’t, I don’t get reimbursed or the charge is refused and I have to pay it.

I wouldn’t expect to see all of those little details myself, but someone should be reporting on it, and the big picture item like Costs went up x% from Y$ to Z$ should be front and center.

However, with the new copyright enforcements and approvals coming from the upper end, i can imagine most of that has to be removed, approved and then reposted. Talk about a beauracratic nightmare, well…

I realize that it might also be hard to get concrete figures, but if that's part of the need for a sustained source of income, well, OK, just mention it. But maybe get out of the business? Or make the melodies available, without text that needs to be licensed.

Or make the melodies available, without text that needs to be licensed.

please explain how this could be possible in a working environment.

I wish everyone involved well, and I pray that God's will be done. CCW has been a true blessing to sacred music in recent decades. It would be lamentable to see it fade away in a poorly executed administrative decision, whether born of genuine hope, desperation, ignorance, or any other motive or possible shortcoming.

This is my fear, too. As I said, I absolutely relied on CCW early in my career as I was getting my sea legs. Eventual discovery of the CMAA also helped (and still helps) tremendously. I'm sad to think that that huge corpus of material will now remain undiscovered by upcoming musicians who would similarly benefit.

However, with the new copyright enforcements and approvals coming from the upper end, i can imagine most of that has to be removed, approved and then reposted. Talk about a beauracratic nightmare, well…

Considering my debacle, I've long wondered how they flew under the radar since their operation had soooo much more visibility than mine. I never said anything for fear of causing the resources to be rescinded for this very reason (usccb intervention). I cannot count how many times I've seen people reference using those psalm settings online. There is going to be some genuine panic in a few parishes.

---
I think there is simply no denying what a tremendous service Jeff has done to the music world the last decade. Regardless of your perception of the man qua man, his labors have been extensive and massively fruitful to countless other directors. But it's also not fair to expect him to labor for "free" indefinitely. I have no idea what sort of salary he has drawn from the non profit, but it still cannot be huge.

I'm sympathetic to those who cry foul that the things that were offered for free are no longer free; I think this is part of the sticking point. The resources should remain free, even if newly generated content is not. It could have played out other ways, in any case. The whole thing just saddens me. I don't think he's a villain, even if this situation is regrettable. I have spent well north of $1000 on my own web-hosting fees the last few years; those are real dollars out of my real pocket. I'm sure he has real expenses too.

That said, I can state unequivocally that I have no intention of paywalling my blog posts (few that they are) and intend to continue expanding my free resources section. If anyone here would like to see any of their articles or scans go up in a second alternative place, shoot me a message. I'd be happy to upload resources for free.

According to Jeff Ostrowski himself: "We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity which

Now it says it’s a non-profit at the bottom of the CCW website, which is legally different than a charity (at least in Canada).

What an interesting point you raise... my conversations with the USCCB indicated that regardless of their ultimate position on who owes them money (i.e. everyone), their interest—and what raises it to the level of involving the lawyers—is when their IP is sold without a licensing agreement in place. To this point CCW was free, therefore no money to squeeze out of a rock. Now that it is not free... could be interesting. I would ask him to remove the single setting I contributed 15 years ago, but he blocked me years ago. Oh well...

Jeff may not have thought this through.

Now that he is selling access to his site, the USCCB will likely demand that licensing fees be paid.

Well, if I understand it, the custom in scholarly writing, when publishing a critique of someone's views, is to invite the other person, after publication, to offer a reply.

And certainly with all that has been said here, even though this is a casual discussion, that offer applies here too.

For what it's worth, my opinion is about the same as PeterJ's, indicated above: that CCW has understandable financial needs and is trying something that they hope will help, and which they have a right to do (with at most minor exceptions, IMHO).

* * *
On another topic, contemporaryworship92 wrote:

the USCCB will likely demand that licensing fees be paid

It may not be needed on their part: in a few years when The New Lectionary Which Is To Come arrives, psalm settings using the old text will be phased out and become less relevant as an occasion of uncaptured potential revenue. Will most of the current Chabanel Psalms composers want to offer their new settings to the site, now that it's paywalled?

The New Lectionary Which Is To Come

And is this "New Lectionary" in the room with us right now?

I kid.

Mostly.

If Jeff wasn’t isolated, and had he not made it impossible to actually figure out who may be responsible for this besides himself, I think that this conversation would be very different. But since he deflected in the way that he did, he’s blocked a lot of us to the point where I get reactions out of people who are much more even-keeled than I am and very good at their jobs as a result, I find it difficult to say that we have to carry on in private.

So...you can give him his money every month or not. This is not the first time this has happened. Mr. Bartlett of Source and Summit gave away his settings of the propers for years. He then chose to no longer make them available and went on to make Illuminare Publications and now S&S. I was frustrated with him when the door closed, but I also knew that he was not making any money. Yes, people do need to feed themselves and their families. I then went on to use Fr. Weber's propers as my stepping stone to the Latin. I bought the books. And his volumes 2,3 and 4 can be found on his website. I continue to use them when needed, but I am moving toward the Latin propers full-time. I am grateful for Mr. Bartlett and for Fr. Weber for their efforts and even CCW. Some of us are old enough to remember that there was a time when there was nothing for tradition-minded musicians. The landscape has definitely improved, though there is still work to do. I am grateful for CPDL and Imslp for the incredible availablity of so many scores that frankly, would not be easily accessed by the ordinary parish musician.

So, just consider CCW and the subscription as one more evolution. Take it or leave it. Either way, one can make do. Change is inevitable. The question is how you attend to it. You can complain or figure out what you need to do.

Jeff has always had employment as a music director AFAICT and I think that the comparison to Source and Summit is also somewhat inapt, in particular since the editor is still free, which is a handy tool to proofread anything required for editing Gregobase and scores that I generate from Ben Bloomfield's tool for my own needs, among other uses.

Is there “blocking” of each other in the name of Christ? Can we just live in our own method of directing the chant?

IMVHO, I don’t believe anyone has the best, most authentic, accurate, artistic, historical, (insert other descriptive here) method to PRAY/SING GC.

If that divides one from the unity we have in Christ, well…

“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto little ones in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able: for you are yet carnal.

For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal and walk you not according to man?

For while one saith: I indeed am of Paul: and another: I am of Apollo: are you not men? What then is Apollo and what is Paul?

What then is Mocquereau and what is Cardine and what is Mensuralism

The ministers of him whom you have believed: and to every one as the Lord hath given.

I have planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase.

Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth: but God that giveth the increase.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth, are one. And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour.

For we are God's coadjutors. You are God's husbandry: you are God's building.

According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation: and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus.

Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble:

Every man's work shall be manifest. For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire. And the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.

If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

If any mans work burn, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.

Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are.

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written: I will catch the wise in their own craftiness.

And again: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Let no man therefore glory in men.

For all things are yours, whether it be Paul or Apollo or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. For all are yours.

And you are Christ's. And Christ is God's.”

For most church musicians I know, including myself, employment as a music director does not provide a living sufficient to raise a family apart from other work.

Sure. But it seems clear to me how Source and Summit becoming a paid service was a natural evolution for what is offered and the person offering it. It’s a whole ecosystem that rivals the mainstream stuff.

Whereas Jeff explicitly said that he didn’t want this to be a paid offering or to even require a log-in. So: what happened?

But it is not, for the reasons that I stated. Jeff might not like it, but cultivating free resources made by or provided by other people in significant part is not a job, and it shouldn’t be your main source of income or an important one supplementing your day job without a significant benefactor and a real structure behind it. In other words, you could do it under the auspices of something like the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.

And I’m sorry but whining that too many people use resources without really contributing is just how it goes. If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t work for the Catholic Church.

Whereas essentially developing an ecosystem to give normies something less bad than OCP with the same ease? Yeah that’s more reasonable to make into your full-time job and asking people to pay.

Anyway, the editor is free, and nothing at CCW is now free.