FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 


ONE LICENSE announces acquisition of Word of Life International:

July 1 launch of new services for Word of Life customers

ONE LICENSE, LLC is excited and honoured to announce that, effective 1st July 2017, all Word of Life International customers will become a part of the ONE LICENSE family, bringing new functionality and services to customers of the Word of Life service in Australia and New Zealand.

ONE LICENSE, jointly owned by GIA Publications, Inc. (GIA) and Oregon Catholic Press (OCP), retains Willow Publishing as our agent in Australia and New Zealand. Participating publishers include OCP, GIA, WLP, Willow Publishing, Hope Publishing, Kevin Mayhew, CopyCare Pacific, Emmaus Productions, and many more.

ONE LICENSE primarily serves Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant communities in English-speaking countries around the world. Via https://onelicense.net, church musicians can download and report thousands of hymns and songs in one convenient and easy-to-use location.

‘We are excited and honoured to welcome Word of Life International customers to ONE LICENSE’, said Alec Harris, president of GIA Publications, Inc. and OneLicense, LLC. ‘We are appreciative of the service Word of Life and Mark Beckwith and his late father Roger provided the Church over these many years—indeed they were pioneers of licensing services for congregations. At ONE LICENSE, we look forward to serving churches in Australia and New Zealand with a simple, convenient, and affordable way to access the music they love’.

One License’s acquisition of Word of Life will allow us to provide even more services and features to congregations in Australia and New Zealand. Congregations will truly have ‘one licence’ that will serve their needs for liturgies and other church celebrations.

Mark Beckwith, owner of Word of Life, said, ‘I wish to thank all Word of Life International customers for their diligence and loyalty since 1993, when these licences were first introduced. I am happy to pass on the service my father (Roger Beckwith) dreamed up to provide a simple pathway for churches and schools to seek copyright permission. I know that ONE LICENSE will continue the service in the same vein with integrity, affordability, and convenience. To all those that I have developed friendships with through taking phone calls and answering emails since 2000, I say goodbye’.

Current Word of Life International customers in Australia and New Zealand will be receiving instructions for moving to the new web platform in the coming weeks.

ONE LICENSE is an online licensing service committed to making it easy to obtain reprint permissions for congregational music. From Annual, Event, and Single-Use Reprint Licences to Practice-Track and Podcast/Streaming Licences, we have a licence that will meet your congregational music reprint needs.

For additional information, contact:

Brenna C. Cronin

General Manager

OneLicense, LLC

infoau@onelicense.net

ONE LICENSE FAQs for Word of Life customers in Australia and New Zealand

What will not change?
Congregations will be able to continue to access most, if not all, of their favourite music on a single online platform: http://onelicense.net. Our goal is to make the transition to the new ONE LICENSE as seamless as possible for you.

Your current Word of Life International licence will continue in force until its regular expiration date, at which point you will receive a renewal invoice from ONE LICENSE.

What will change?
The biggest changes are as follows:

  • A new web platform with industry-leading technology that you will now use to report the music you use with your license: http://onelicense.net.
  • Download thousands of songs for use in worship aids, or to project on a screen… all included with your basic licence!
  • Use our robust tools to quickly find the titles you need, or to create templates of your favourite songs.
  • A database of repertoire that is vast, accurate, and continually updated. (And if you don’t see a title that you believe is covered, you can manually submit the title that will be reviewed by our team.)
  • There is no need for additional licenses if a church event is held outside of the church grounds.
  • We offer an online secure payment portal, and accept payment via credit card. (We no longer accept payment via cheque.)
  • We send regular updates via a monthly online newsletter.
  • Our reporting is organised by week, supporting better planning.

Does ONE LICENSE offer additional license types?
Yes! In addition to our Annual Reprint Licences, we offer 24-hour Single-Use Licences and week-long Event Licences. We also a offer Podcast/Streaming Licence, which will give you permission to podcast or stream religious services containing covered songs. Our Practice-Track Licence gives you permission to share recordings of covered songs for practise and rehearsal purposes.

Will the cost of the license change?
The new ONE LICENSE offers a new and improved online experience, including access to image and text files for thousands of songs by leading composers and publishers, and robust online tools to make downloading and reporting song use easier. For these reasons, Word of Life customers will experience a price increase when their current license expires, to match our current pricing in Australia and New Zealand. Rest assured that pricing will be competitive with other music licensing services and an excellent value.

Who are your Member Publishers?
ONE LICENSE is proud to represent the leading publishers of music for Roman Catholic and ecumenical churches. Member Publishers include GIA Publications, Inc. (GIA), Oregon Catholic Press (OCP), World Library Publications (WLP), Hope Publishing, Kevin Mayhew, Willow Publishing, the Iona Community, CopyCare Pacific, Emmaus Productions, the Taizé Community, and many, many more.
Our Member Publisher list may differ from the list of publishers who were part of Word of Life. Please check our website at https://onelicense.net/publishers for a current list of our Member Publishers in Australia and New Zealand.

Will the reporting process change?
Accuracy in reporting is extremely important, as this assures that composers and publishers receive fair compensation for their wonderful contributions to the global church. As a result, our licence will continue to require churches to report 100% of what they use. Song data accuracy has been a hallmark of ONE LICENSE. One of the primary changes in usage reporting is that we will be asking licence holders to report the frequency each song is used each week, for those churches that have more than one service. But to make reporting simple, and because much of the music in a week is the same at each service, we will include a default number of services in the reporting field which will automatically fill in from a field in your user profile.

How can I log in to ONE LICENSE?
First time users of our licence will need to reset their password. To do so, click the Log In button in the top right-hand corner of the screen on the http://onelicense.net home page. Then, click the Forgot Password link. You will then be prompted to enter your email address. (For additional help with resetting your password, there is a link to a brief video.)

You will then receive an email from us with a link. Click this link and then enter your new password twice, as prompted. Once your password is reset, click the Log In button on the home screen to log in.

When you are logged in, you can click the “My Account” link at the top of the webpage, and then the “Licenses” tab to review your license. We have made every attempt to map your Word of Life licence to the closest category in ONE LICENSE. If you see any errors in your assigned category, please email us at infoau@onelicense.net.

What happens to my licence number from Word of Life?
We ask that as you reprint and create new programs, that you include the following information underneath songs reprinted under your ONE LICENSE license, in addition to the copyright information for that song:

© 2003, ABC Music Co., All rights reserved.
Used with permission under ONE LICENSE #A-62XXXX

In this example, XXXX is your current four-digit Word of Life licence number. The year and ABC Music Company relate to the year and copyright owner of the specific song you are reprinting under the licence. If you have any questions, please email us at infoau@onelicense.net.

What if I don’t have a computer? Can I report manually?
We require online reporting as the best and most accurate way to record the music you use, with a simple reporting platform. We can no longer accept written submissions. Our quick video tutorial can walk you through the reporting steps. To view our videos, click “How It Works” from the home page and then click on “Tutorial Videos.”

Can more than one person report songs from my congregation?
Yes! The account owner of your license can assign other users on the account via our website, and those users can then report. To add users to your account, click on the “My Account” tab, then “User Accounts”, and then click the “Add User” button.

What will happen to the Word of Life Full Score Music Licence?
Customers with the Full Score Music Licence from Word of Life will continue to be able to use this licence until it expires. This licence, however, will be phased out. In the future, Music Accompaniment Licence-holders will need to purchase physical or electronic versions of this music for their choir, keyboard players, or other instrumentalists from their local retailer or directly from the publisher, and destroy copies made under the Word of Life Full Score Music Licence. Many established publishers already did not participate in this licence.

How are you planning to grow?
Our goal is to continue to make it easy for congregations, schools, and communities to use music to its fullest. We continue to explore a range of innovative licence options and technologies to help our customers make the most of their music, legally and easily!

Who should I contact with additional questions?
For the quickest response, please email us at infoau@onelicense.net. You should receive an email response within one business day.

ONE LICENSE is operated out of our headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, United States, but will continue to partner with the team at Willow Publishing, located in Sydney, Australia, as our sales agent. Depending on your questions, you will receive a response either from our Chicago offices or our partners in Sydney.

You will be receiving an email invitation to informative webinars in the near future, as a way to learn about ONE LICENSE.

You may also email our General Manager, Brenna C. Cronin, with additional questions at infoau@onelicense.net.

We are excited and honoured to serve you and will do everything in our power to make the transition to ONE LICENSE as smooth as possible.