Yes, I will be able to help you. I will shoot you an email tomorrow, I'm meeting with the owner of Ardent Records tomorrow so I'll ask him for specific Christian genre tips and then throw in what I know about the entertainment law.

Sincerely,

You are asking for a complete course in music law. You need to either educate yourself on this or get professional help. (And even if you get the help, you should educate yourself.) The best place on the web to start that I have found is CDbaby. They have a lot of info on what you need to do to legally publish a CD. They don't have much specific information on Christian music, but all of the general principles apply.

At the minimum, your artist should work out a publishing agreement for (or self publish) any original songs and needs to secure the "mechanical rights" to any song that is being covered. Contemporary Christian music has an alternative system to the BMI/ASCAP - Harry Fox system for commercial music. CCLI is the place for performance licences - similar to BMI/ASCAP. That may not be important to you in making a CD, but if you or someone in a Church has access to CCLI, it is a great place to find information about the publisher of the songs you are covering. Harry Fox is the clearing house for mechanical rights for most commercial music, but many Christian music publishers do this on their own. Fortunately, most will give you a better deal on minimum number of copies and reporting requrements than you can get out of Harry Fox.

Good luck.

"You are asking for a complete course in . You need to either educate yourself on this or get professional help. (And even if you get the help, you should educate yourself.)"

This is what it is all about, in a nutshell.

Spend the time, or the money, but ideally, a little of both.

Especially any entrepreneurial ventures. It is imperative for a chance at success.