keitha wrote:Yes, JW, you are correct. If you write a musical setting using ICEL copyright texts for regular use in your own community/parish but nowhere else, with no charge being made you will still need ICEL permission and will need to insert the correct acknowledgement, but no fee will be charged.
There will be a series of pertinent links placed on this website for all this sort of stuff shortly.
At the risk of going over old ground, it is worth checking first that the texts on which ICEL claims copyright are actually ICEL texts.
(1) "Lord, have mercy", etc, and "Kyrie eleison" are not ICEL copyright texts but in the public domain. Copyright is only involved if you use the tropes in Form III, e.g. "You were sent to heal the contrite of heart", etc
(2) The Gloria and all the Memorial Acclamations in the most recent Missal are ICEL copyrights. No question there.
(3) "Amen" as in the Great Amen is in the public domain, but the doxology "Through him" is ICEL copyright.
(4) The "Holy, holy" is not an ICEL copyright text. It is in fact copyright ICET 1970 with only two words altered, not enough to establish a new copyrightable text. Indeed, ICEL itself admitted this early on when the revised Missal appeared, and said it would not attempt to claim copyright in the text. Later it changed its mind, on the grounds that it needed to protect the copyright text by being its Administrator. It has no legal right to do this whatsoever. Indeed, ICET always made its texts available free of charge to anyone who wishes to make use of them, provided that a copyright acknowledgement is printed; and that tradition is continued by ELLC, ICET's successor.
(5) The Lamb of God
was an ICEL copyright text in 1969, but for no clear reason when this text was reused (with a minor punctuation change) in 2010/2011 ICEL decided not to claim copyright in the text, and indeed suggested that it was an ICET text. (It was not: the ICET Lamb of God is completely different.) This seems to have happened as a result of ignorance in the ICEL offices.
Hopefully this will help aspiring composers and parish musicians.