Submit or not to the Panel?

[HallamPhil]

This is not an opportunity for folk to ridicule our Panel but just me asking perhaps a daft question and seeking advice!

I have just been sent some Mass settings by an Australian composer. I understand that he has not submitted his settings to the Panel in UK (and am unsure whether he has submitted them to his own conference. Can we use them here?

[promusica]

I assume, not being from the UK, that the Panel solely deals with music for dissemination, promotion and publication. What each parish gets up to, in relation to new mass settings, is largely up to the pastor and music director. So surely the use of an Australian mass setting is permitted in the same way as any music imported into the UK from Ireland or the USA? Has the Australian mass setting been evaluated by a similar body to the UK Panel?

[Peter Jones]

If the Mass setting has been published in Australia, it should bear the stamp of having been approved by the Australian Bishops' Panel and the relevant ICEL copyright notice. If these are present, then it may be imported and used here under the same conditions that, for example, settings published in the USA or Ireland can be imported and used here.

Settings are submitted to the Bishops' Panels of the territory wherein the publisher (not necessarily the composer) is situated. So James MacMillan's settings go through the England and Wales Panel because Boosey and Hawkes is an English publisher. James himself lives within the territory of the Scottish Episcopal Conference.

If the Australian composer has sent you a manuscript and is asking you to help get his/her music published in England and Wales (as a Coriander imprint?) then you must submit the music type-set to the Panel of England and Wales.

I assume, not being from the UK, that the Panel solely deals with music for dissemination, promotion and publication.

All the Panel does is check that appropriate use of the text has been made and that it has been set accurately.

[helen rees]

Can I check? Can I introduce a setting which has been written by members of our own group with in our parish as long as the pp agrees. In order to learn the new acclamations I encouraged youngsters to write their own and some are quite good one in particular. Do they have to go to a panel before we sing them?

[Nick Baty]

No. Only publishers have to submit their work to The Panel.

[musicus]

That's correct.

If, for any reason, the music is going to be used outside your parish, then that is deemed to be publishing (whether it be in print or online, free or for sale). Then it needs to go to the PPP (and to ICEL for copyright permission).

[Peter Jones]

Can I check? .........

Nick and musicus (a.k.a. Ursa Major) are correct. If the music you or your group has composed is being used solely within your parish, you do not need to submit the music to the Bishops' Panel.
Your Parish is defined in Canon Law as a territory with distinct boundaries.

If, however, you wish the music to be disseminated beyond your parish boundary - then you are setting yourself up as a publisher (even if you are giving the music away for free) and
you need to submit the music to the Panel AND obtain a contract from ICEL, subsequent to the Panel's approval.

[helen rees]

Thank you for this - will go ahead and sing next week