Sing a rights-cleared song to the Lord
“Each report we receive at ONE LICENSE turns into a royalty payment,” says Brenna Cronin, “and those payments are someone’s livelihood.”
Brenna C. Cronin, executive general manager of ONE LICENSE, a congregational music copyright clearinghouse (Source images: Getty & courtesy of Brenna C. Cronin)
In 2004, I was the music director at a congregation with eclectic taste in music. This was exciting—but when it came to navigating copyright compliance, also a bit overwhelming. So I was relieved that year when GIA Publications introduced ONE LICENSE, a one-stop service for churches and others to secure reprint permissions from several key publishers of congregational music. Since then ONE LICENSE has grown, adding many more songs, publishers, license types, and customers. In 2017, ONE LICENSE was relaunched as a venture owned jointly by GIA and Oregon Catholic Press. It has since grown to serve more than 25,000 license holders, offering them access to more than 210,000 titles from more than 300 publishers large and small.
Brenna C. Cronin currently serves as executive general manager of ONE LICENSE and has been with the company since 2016. I spoke with her about what the service offers, the usage reports that license holders are required to submit, and why it matters.
