Ami Williams

Part 2 (Application)

What would you do if…
…your Senior Pastor hands you his favorite Dilbert cartoon for the front of the worship folder this week?
…your youth pastor wants to post a music video of the student ministries’ latest event featuring a song by Third Day?
…your creative design team wants to use clips from the Dr. Phil show?

Television. Songs. Cartoons. Icons. As the church strives to creatively connect with an increasingly visual audience, our culture is rich with enticing metaphors, perfect for the next sermon or event promotion.

Copyright. Intellectual Property. Trademark. The law is specific about how churches can and can’t use the ideas and creative concepts of others. Learn what the law says—and how it applies to your work. How do we honor the creators of the original concepts and ideas? And, perhaps, more challenging, how do we lead our staff and teams to do the same?

Did you know that most of what your church produces is copyrighted? We’ll show you how to protect the original works of your church—sermons, songs, books, websites and more!

About the presenter: Ami Williams
Ami Williams is the Editor and Copyright Specialist at Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky. For the last seven years, Ami has worked to design and enforce a copyright policy that gives Southland’s staff members the freedom to be creative within the boundaries of the copyright laws. She manages the permission and licensing processes for all of Southland’s ministries and is responsible for training staff members on how the laws apply to the church’s use of copyrighted materials such as music, literature and images.

Through the development of a comprehensive copyright policy and the administration of a staff-wide procedure, Ami has helped Southland become an example for churches in the area of copyright compliance. When it comes to Southland’s use of copyrighted materials, one of Ami’s greatest lessons has been the realization that her job is not to tell staff members why using copyrighted materials is illegal—rather it is to find out how to use copyrighted materials legally to the glory of God.

This material is from a breakout session presented at MinistryCOM 2007.

Session Audio
Session Slides
Session Handouts

Matthew Schantz

Part 1 (the Law)

“Intellectual property” law is often misunderstood, though we encounter intellectual property every day. Mr. Schantz will outline the types of intellectual property, how rights come to exist, and what is protected by each. With a focus primarily on copyright law as it relates to creative works that churches might often use or encounter, he will discuss what works are protected by copyright, copyright duration, what acts might infringe copyright, and what exceptions protect certain acts in certain situations that would otherwise infringe. Mr. Schantz will offer and discuss some hypothetical situations and actual court cases as data points for comparison. He hopes to enable roundtable participants to analyze situations enough to know what might be clearly non-infringing or clearly infringing, and when to call your intellectual property lawyer.

About the presenter: Matthew R. Schantz
Matt Schantz has extensive experience in intellectual property matters, including issues of patent, trademark, trade secret, and copyright law. He has written and prosecuted patent applications in electrical, electromechanical, semiconductor, software, mail processing, and electromagnetic technology, and has performed infringement analyses, preliminary patentability searches, and prior art research both prospectively and in support of litigation. Matt has also handled document production analysis, conducted case research, evaluation, and organization, and taken several depositions in litigation. He serves on the President’s Advisory Board of Rainmakers (an Indianapolis-based professional networking organization) and on an SBIR grant review panel for the National Science Foundation.

Matt has been married fourteen years, and immensely enjoys his two sons, Eli and Isaac. He and his wife co-direct their congregation’s God Made Me Ministry, serving children who have special needs, and their families.

This material is from a breakout session presented at MinistryCOM 2007.

Session Audio