For artists

If a label paid for the recording, or a publisher owns part of the lyric or the melody, you cannot give that song away. Many artists do not realize a contract already took those rights. Those songs do not belong on this list, even if you wrote them.

What does belong is work you still control: both the recording and the composition, including every co-writer. You license that song so the church may use it. You keep the credit. You drop the expectation that anyone must pay you to sing it.

Why credit, not anonymity#

CC-BY is the license this project expects. People who receive the song must name you. That is deliberate. Credit is a reason to offer a few songs even when the rest of a catalog stays under ordinary copyright. A church that sings your song points listeners toward the rest of your work without you charging the church for this one.

CC0, which asks for no credit, also makes a song free to use. This project prefers CC-BY so your name is not optional.

Money, after the gift#

You should not count on being paid for a listed song. You may still tell listeners where a gift can go. Podcasting 2.0 already has tags for that:

• podcast:value for value sent while the song plays
• podcast:funding for a link to give in the ordinary way

v4vcm does not sit in the middle of that gift and does not take a percentage. If you do not want gifts at all, leave the tags off. The song can still be listed.

One feed can hold both kinds of songs#

A license can sit on a single track. The rest of a feed can stay all-rights-reserved. Item-level podcast:license is how a “first fruits” song can live next to songs you are not offering. Details of the markers a reviewer looks for are on How a song gets in .