This tip is about creating a playlist of YouTube videos made by others to share music with praise teams and congregations. I wanted to share this idea as something that might be useful to others. We started by creating a YouTube account. Each week, we have a planned song list for worship. We try to finalize this list about 10-12 days ahead of time. Then I search YouTube for the songs that we will be singing and compile them into a playlist.
I've been sharing this playlist each week with our praise team singers and instrumentalists so they can get a feel for a the playlist before arriving for rehearsal on Sunday mornings. I've also shared these links on our church Facebook page, or shared links to a single song if it is a new one that I want to encourage people to hear before we sing it in worship. Our YouTube account is also linked on our church website. Although I haven't deliberately promoted it, this could be a way to introduce people to the style of worship before they visit our church.
Here's a link to our YouTube account if you want to take a look: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrossroadsCRC
One administrative note: it is possible to delegate access to a business/organizational YouTube account so multiple users can access it without sharing a login. I recommend this if multiple people will be making updates to the account.
Comments
I have to ask about the copyright and legal issues behind this. Most of the YouTube links you have on your playlist are not from the artists' YT page, they are from fans who create lyric videos, and who do not own the copyright. While I agree that your suggestion is a great way to get new music to your musicians, the fact that "it's on the internet so it must be ok to use" is a bit of a grey area for me, especially if you are posting on your public church page.
Is there someone out there who can help shed some light on this?
Good question. I'm not a legal expert by any means, but my thought is that the poster of the video is responsible for the permissions. By creating a playlist, it does not create a duplicate copy of the video or claim ownership of it; it's more a collection of links to the various content that others have posted. I did try to use "official" content as much as possible, although as you noticed, most of it is not. If I'm wrong about this, then I guess I would retract my suggestion, and revise my use of YouTube. I'm interested as well in hearing what others might have to say.
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