JLicense, launched in June 2017, is the only music-licensing agency primarily serving the entire international Jewish community. We are a non-profit organization owned and administered by Transcontinental Music Publications. JLicense was created by clergy and professionals from within the organized Jewish world to serve as an all-encompassing licensing agency for Jewish communities, with the mission of helping to support the creation of new Jewish music by fairly compensating its composers and songwriters.
JLicense licenses are available on an annual basis, a 24-hour/single-use basis, or for a special event up to one week in length. What is included in the license is the same regardless of duration: our covered music and lyrics are licensed for streaming, archiving, podcasting, making rehearsal recordings, projecting on-screen, making custom arrangements, sharing in social media, and printing in bulletins, handouts, dapei t’filah, and more. We work with an ever-growing list of member composers, songwriters, and publishers, in addition to the Transcontinental Music catalog, to provide a huge list of the Jewish world’s most popular songs.
Depending on other media your congregation or organization employs, you likely do. The only other legal alternative is to seek permission and compensate copyright owners for each and every usage. If you ever use copyrighted lyrics or music in a social media post or video, bulletin, handout, worship aid, on-screen projection, or daf t’filah , for example, you should be reporting to JLicense. If you ever make rehearsal recordings for a choir or band or to teach a copyrighted song to a teacher in your religious school, you need JLicense. If you make your own arrangement, adaptation, or edition of copyrighted music or lyrics for use in your community, you need JLicense.
When reporting the title, you will see the copyright statement as set by the composer. The standard copyright notice format is:
Words & Music: Jane Doe, © 1987 ABC Music Co.; Used with permission under JLicense #A-000000. All rights reserved.
Replace the example JLicense license number with your own valid license number. When possible and especially if listing individual copyrights is not possible, please include the PDF slide available to download from our web site footer in your broadcast.Use this help reference section for tips on reporting and easing your JLicense routine. Many of these are explained in our handy tutorial videos shown above.
Each time you log in, the system will remember your entries from the previous report, organized by week. Most of the repertoire in common usage is in the JLicense database, and we’re always adding more.
Make sure you know the composers of the songs you’re going to report, ahead of time. If you don’t know a composer’s name for a tune you’re using, ask a local cantor or search YouTube.
JLicense features different ways to report your song usages. Each has its own benefit, and with some time, you’ll figure out what works best for you. Begin reporting by assigning songs to a specific week by clicking the Manage button next to that week’s listing. This is also handy if you need to add a song to a previous report that has already been finished. On this screen, you can use our Quick Reporting Tools, which allows you to search and pick from recent songs reported, most frequently reported songs, and from a list of songs that you create. Also, for a head start, if you’re entering a similar service to last week’s, click the Duplicate button, then select the destination week.
Once a song is listed in a week’s report, it is considered reported (though you can add or remove songs from that week for up to three months afterwards).
You can search for a specific song using the search field that appears on each page. Keep your search to unique terms that will limit the result to what you need. For example, if you are looking to report my usage of the song Mi Chamochah, you could type the composer name or “mi chamochah”.
Once you find the song you’re looking for, click the Report button and select the week you used it. Click the Send and View Weekly Report button to submit then view that particular week’s report, or click Submit and Continue Search to submit the report, then stay with your search.
Lists allow you to easily create reporting templates that make your routine considerably easier! You can create lists from scratch, from a weekly report, from a single song, from search results, or from another report.
You can access your Lists by clicking Manage Lists from the My Account menu.
Creating service templates for your repeated weekly or periodic musical or lyrical content can save you a good amount of time. For example, if your community uses many of the same songs each week during services, create a new template containing those tunes. If it varies, create different templates covering the variations. You can always substitute songs for a given week, but the List Tool streamlines the time you spend reporting in general.
For example, let’s create a template for repeated use, called Shabbat Evening Service 1. Start by searching for a song. You could do any number of things to report the usage from the search (again, reporting means assigning a song to a specific week - that’s it), but let’s create a new list from here. Click the “+ List” button next to the song in the search results that you want to add to a list, enter your list title as Shabbat Evening Service 1, then click Save and Stay on Search.
Add a couple more songs to your new list. This time, click Save and Manage List. This takes us to the Manage Lists page, and to our new Shabbat Evening Service 1 list.
Select the songs that you want to report then click Report All Selected. Select the week then click Save and View Report. Here are the songs that you have reported usages of for this particular week. Let’s add a song that you may have forgotten to report for this week. Pro tip: you can add a song that you recently reported by using the Quick Reporting Tools at the bottom of the page. Pro tip 2: to create a new list based on a certain week’s report, click the Save this Report as a List button on any given week’s report page.
JLicense was created specifically to include common broadcast and performance usages of copyrighted music and lyrics in progressive synagogue life. This includes use of covered music and lyrics in these settings:
Streaming and archiving (recording) of songs in any worship service and lifecycle, concert, or other events for your community;
On-screen projection and reproductions in handouts, dapei t’filah, songsheets, worship aids, email newsletters, and bulletins;
Rehearsal and resource recordings that you make for educational and practice purposes, and distribute within your community via email, your web site, Dropbox or similar services, or other methods of distribution;
Your custom musical arrangements, adaptations, and editions;
Social media posts including streaming or posting recordings, promotional or other videos, and so much more.
JLicense licensees often find that the best practice is to make reporting part of your weekly routine, since JLicense is a weekly, or, Shabbat-based system. Here are some tips to help ease your learning curve:
Take advantage of the List Tool (above). There is no limit to the number of templates you can create. Set some time aside initially to set up your main service templates, and your weekly reporting time will be significantly reduced.
Keep your cue sheets (if you use them) as they can help you remember what songs were used.
Weekly reporting is best, but if necessary, you can report up to three months retroactively or two months into the future.
Only report a specific song once per week. No matter how many performances of that one song you’ve had in one particular week, you will only need to report it once.
Public domain songs or songs not covered by JLicense do not need to be reported.
Track your history. Get some insight into your service reporting by clicking Download 12 Month Report History at the bottom of the Report Usage page. You’ll receive a chronological report of everything you’ve reported in the last twelve months, in PDF format.
Suggest new songs or artists to us. If a song or artist catalog is not in our database, submit your recommendation to our team at the bottom of the search page, and we will review the title and do our best to add it.
If you are a composer/songwriter/author of original music or lyrics used in the Jewish world, you can register to make your songs available for licensing. JLicense licenses copyrighted Jewish music and lyrics for broadcast and performance (and related) usages, similar to ASCAP or BMI in the secular world. Our license was specifically designed for Jewish synagogues and organizations, and includes unique usage rights that are not included in any other license, and a catalog most of which is not available elsewhere.
Listing your catalog of Jewish songs is a crucial step in making sure that you are fairly compensated for usages of your music. The most common example of music usage is the streaming of worship services. If you know of a synagogue using your music during their streamed services, they should be reporting to JLicense if they are not already.
While we are planning an artist access portal to the site, for now, please contact us to register. Here are some common questions about becoming a JLicense artist:
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