SOCAN acquires the Montreal rights agency SODRAC with the goal of obtaining better returns

Perception fees may soon become more effective for Canadian musicians, two of greater musical rights of the country The organizations have agreed to consolidate this week, hoping to put more money in the pockets of Canada's favorite songwriters and their publishers in the digital age. hard to get

SOCAN, the Canada-wide rights agency that raises money for More than 150,000 songwriters and composers and their publishers bought a Montreal-based agency that administers a copyright fee. related author – an initiative to consolidate the collection of royalties and find efficiencies that SOCAN hopes to provide to its members.

Copyright on music and copyright is a complicated mess at a good day. But in a streaming world where working musicians earn significantly less money from their recorded music than at the peak of CDs purchased in the late 1990s, a strong royalty collection can help offset this change. SOCAN, representing the Society of Songwriters, Composers and Music Publishers of Canada, has strengthened its royalty collection over this decade through a wave of acquisitions, hoping to offer more money for more members in more jurisdictions

Many of these acquisitions were made by technology companies, but SOCAN will announce Tuesday the purchase of the Society of Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Canada, which has 9,000 members, better known as SODRAC. While SOCAN traditionally collected royalties for musicians when their music was played in public – on the radio, in a restaurant or by a group of covers – SODRAC administers separate reproduction rights licenses, for example when the music is played in public. a record company makes copies. or records.

The predominant music pattern prevalent today, dominated by YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music, has blurred the line between the two. in the reproduction and performance of a song, entangling these author rights in new ways. SOCAN stated that its acquisition of SODRAC serves to consolidate and streamline the collection of royalties for Canadian songwriters and publishers who invest in them. Both organizations are not-for-profit; SOCAN will acquire SODRAC's badets for one dollar, companies say.

"Everything is in response to changing conditions and the need to adapt to a changed environment," said Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN. You can not cope with the licensing needs of 2018 with tools and structures that evolved at the end of the last century. "

The administration of both author rights" should result in reduced commission rates and faster and more accurate payments. "

The Canadian music rights sector was consolidated this decade. The sister agency of SODRAC in Toronto, the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA), also collects reproduction royalties and has was acquired by the US organization SoundExchange At the beginning of this decade, SOCAN, SODRAC and CMRRA began talks to create a "formal alliance" to reduce costs, but decided not to going forward

.AN has recruited complementary technology companies from all over North America and introduced new tools to innovate the collection of music royalties.In turn, he has experienced seven years of growth when the recorded music industry has experienced a slow recovery after the Napster crash in the early 2000s.

SOCAN said in June that it had collected a record $ 352 million royalty in 2017 through the use of music by its members, beating the record of Previous year by 8%

. Digital Inc., whose technology allows for better real-time collection of song streaming data online and to ensure that no parts are left in reserve. A few months later, she bought Audiam, a New York-based company that verifies and monitors services such as YouTube to properly author content for reproduction royalties – making it the first incursion of SOCAN in the US. administration of this copyright

in order to benefit from the economies of scale that SOCAN can bring to reproduction rights, "said Mr. Baptiste. SOCAN has also developed a new copyright scorecard to help songwriters badyze how their music is heard around the world, to help them make more informed decisions, such as marketing. a city where they did not realize that they were popular. Earlier this year, the agency partnered with the University of Toronto to study how it could use artificial intelligence technology to better badyze the Internet in search new sources of revenue and undiscovered talent.