Question:

It’s taken a while, but our church is finally getting a data projector installed. The majority of it’s use will be for displaying song words and maybe bible verses, but it’ll also be used for things dvds and powerpoint presentations. So, I’ve been looking around at different projection software options to run for it (on windows). What software are Churches using? Does anyone have any suggestions/thoughts/opinions/ideas/ warnings/observations that might help me out? There are plenty of options to choose from, ranging from quite expensive to free and open source. Most of them seem relatively easy to use once you get used to the way they work, so ease of use isn’t really a factor in deciding what to get. But what is? One thing I have been wondering about is how we’re going to get the songs into the system. If worst comes to worst then we can type them in, but if we can get songs from other people and import them then that would save a lot of time. If we want to do this, then it would probably be easiest to have the same software as other people are using. So what are other people using? And lastly, after looking at the open source options available I’ve decided I could write something better myself. If I wrote some data projection software and made it freely available would anyone be interested? Is there anyone out there currently using a system that doesn’t quite meet their needs and would like to help me design a new one? If i do go ahead with it then I think a fairly important thing would be to be able to import songs from other systems (including powerpoint), so this is another reason I’d like to know what other people are using now.

Responses:

I’d suggest looking at Craig Mitchell’s useful introductory pages at http://www.missionresourcing.net.au/index.cgi?tid=27 and http://www.missionresourcing.net.au/index.cgi?tid=73, and joining the youthmultimedia egroup or reading the blog at http://www.youthmultimedia.blogspot.com/; there are lots of useful links at each location. Asking the same question(s) on the youthmultimedia group would likely get several useful responses (in addition to the folks who are on both lists).

http://www.missionresourcing.net.au/pages/00000301.cgi has a good list of things to consider, especially if you end up writing your own software.

Re the legal aspects:

The table on pp.9-10 of http://www.apra.com.au/music-users/downloads/Churches.pdf suggests that you can copy lyrics if you hold one of the license types (mostly). But I assume this relates to you copying lyrics for your own purposes, and I can’t see any reference in that document to the transmission/exchange of lyrics, or other material.

One of the guys here who knows a fair bit about music copyright confirms that as long as you’ve got the right license to use a piece of music or lyrics, it doesn’t matter how you come to get the lyrics: you’re licensed for your own use of the lyrics, and what others (unlicensed) may do is their own problem.

But I gather that data projection of lyrics is an issue that is still a little muddy …