How did we get our start?
Our story begins in 1984 when a Portland, Oregon pastor first learned of a pending $3.1 million copyright lawsuit against the Archdiocese in Chicago. The pastor asked his music minister, Howard Rachinski, to ensure that his own church was covered.
In January 1985, Howard began to develop a “permission of use” concept, whereby churches could obtain blanket permission for specific “non-commercial” copying activities. He called it Starpraise Ministries, which became CCLI’s predecessor.
It became abundantly clear that copyright licensing for a church and the songwriters and publishers creating music was an issue that needed to be addressed. The market agreed and by the end of the second year, 1,150 churches signed on with Starpraise.
In January 1988, Starpraise Ministries was incorporated and in April the corporation name was changed to Christian Copyright Licensing, Inc. (CCLI)
CCLI in the Netherlands and Belgium
In the Netherlands and in Belgium, Stichting Licentie led by Leen la Rivière was the representative of music copyrights until 2001. In that year, Stichting Licentie transferred its task to CCLI. CCLI has since been the copyright organisation for the churches in the Benelux. CCLI is an officially registered Independent Management Entity (IME) and is under state supervision and fulfils all requirements for collecting societies according to the EU Directive “Directive 2014/26/EU” of 26.02.2014 of the European Parliament. The Dutch-speaking customer service is offered from our European headquarters. As a representative of interests, but also as a source of information and advice for authors and churches, CCLI is increasingly joining other organisations. Since 2015, CCLI also offers BUMA Licences (as the official agent of BUMA / Stemra).
What we still believe. Our roots began as a ministry of the church and a service to the church, in order to better educate and equip the church about copyright laws, to protect the church from the consequences of copyright infringement and to encourage greater utilisation of copyright material in church services. As our products and service continue to expand and evolve, we remain evermore committed to that cause.
CCLI now serves more than 250,000 churches worldwide.
