I found out today by accident that the melody of “I’d Rather Have Jesus” that I’m  using in my piano solo… is copyrighted.  I always check to make sure hymns are public domain before arranging them and had checked this one out as well.

I verified that the tune and melody were public domain and didn’t click on the music image to view the song and later discovered the tune was different than the one I was arranging.  Guess it’s better to find out BEFORE publishing!

So…I’ve been online with Music Services (provides a variety of ‘a la carte’ services to music publishers – song registration, licensing, royalty collections, royalty accounting) to obtain a “print” license for this arrangement.  This is my first time to deal with a copyrighted work.  I won’t do too many of these for the sake of added expense but will try this with “I’d Rather Have Jesus” since I had already promised it to my readers.

The downside is…there will be a delay in publishing until I get the clearance from Music Services.  I will keep you all posted and sorry for the delay but I want to be above board!

Tags: i'd rather have jesus, music services, piano solo

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2015 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Music Store, Offertories, Special Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.