Canadian Anti-Spam Law applies to musicians and music companies too!
Musicians and music companies should be aware of the new anti-spam laws coming into effect on July 1, 2014. While there is a three-year transition period, any express opt-in email requests have to be sent out before July 1, 2014. After that, phone, fax or snail mail will be the only other way to get consent to send marketing messages to anyone who has not agreed to receive electronic messages including email and social media.
The new law covers all “Commercial Electronic Messages” (CEM) include emails, texts and some social media sent to or from a Canadian computer in Canada for a commercial activity including the promotion of products (e.g. merchandise, CDs, Downloads), services (e.g. offers for live performance) and other business promotion.
Exceptions (list provided in a Mailchimp notice on this subject) include:
Messages to family or a person with established personal relationship.
Messages to an employee, consultant, or person associated with your business.
Responses to a current customer, or someone who has inquired in the last six months.
Messages that will be opened or accessed in a foreign country, including the U.S., China, and most of Europe.
Messages sent on behalf of a charity or political organization for the purposes of raising funds or soliciting contributions.
Messages attempting to enforce a legal right or court order.
Messages that provide warranty, recall, safety, or security information about a product or service purchased by the recipient.
Messages that provide information about a purchase, subscription, membership, account, loan, or other ongoing relationship, including delivery of product updates or upgrades.
A single message to a recipient without an existing relationship on the basis of a referral. The full name of the referring person must be disclosed in the message. The referrer may be family or have another relationship with the person to whom you’re sending.
According to the new rules, you have to get consent from the recipient of any electronic message that qualifies as a CEM. This can be implied consent, which would include anyone who you have already done business with, sold a product or service to, or if you were given an email address or if such email is freely available and such recipient has not stated that they do not want unsolicited emails. If you do not have implied consent, then you will need express consent.
It is also important to retain a record of any consents that you get. If you request bulk consents, each subscriber must check the opt-in box themselves (you cannot pre-select the yes box!).
All messages sent now must include your name, the company or on behalf of whom you are emailing from, physical mailing address, telephone number, email address or URL. For bulk emails, there must be an unsubscribe function.
Penalties for spammers ranges from $1-10 million dollars per violation. Your staff is deemed to be acting on behalf of the company, so be very careful to tell everyone about the possible liability. Having said that, notices from the CRTC have said that they will have limited resources to enforce this law, so it may take being reported to get into any trouble. Also, the goal of the legislation is to punish really annoying spammers and people or companies sending malicious electronic messages. Having said that, ignorance of the law is no excuse and you need to be aware of all of your electronic messaging and marketing.
OK, how does this affect you as a musician or a music company?
FAN MAILING LISTS. If you maintain your own database and send directly from that, you need to make sure that you have implied or express consent to continue to send out newsletters and any promotional emails. I can’t advise you on your particular situation, but if you are sending out an enews from your own database, it would not be a bad idea to send out an express notice to your list asking them to opt-in to your enews BEFORE July 1, 2014. Also, keep proof of the opt-in notices. You would need those if you were called to task on a “spamming” allegation.
If you use services like Mailchimp, their screening is actually more robust that this new legislation and so there is probably already an express or implied consent. Also, if you are using a foreign data service, the legislation may not even apply as it only applies to messages sent from or to a Canadian computer in Canada. Messages that route through a Canadian computer are not subject to the law.
COLD-CALL EMAILs. All of us send out emails to venues, industry, music supervisors, radio, press and many other music related businesses. A random request for a gig, for example, would technically be considered spam under this new legislation. To avoid this, get a referral from someone they know and state the reference in the email, get their business card in advance (conference or festival), or find their contact in an open database that they have consented to. Make sure that the email has all of the contact information that needs to be in the email. At the end of the email give them the opportunity to email back to be deleted from your database. Avoid any multi-email, generic mail-outs of any kind moving forward. Unsolicited mass emails will certainly be considered spam.
It is important to get up to speed on the new anti-spamming laws. Be proactive and make sure that you set yourself up in advance of the July 1, 2014 deadline.
FURTHER READING ON THE SUBJECT:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/com500/faq500.htm
http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/canada-s-new-anti-spam-law-applies-to-almost-all-businesses-1.1885477
http://theonn.ca/what-we-do/stateofthesector/canadas-anti-spam-legislation-nonprofit/
http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/about-the-canada-anti-spam-law-casl/
http://www.imaginecanada.ca/public-policy-issues/anti-spam-regulations-casl?utm_source=Imagine+Matters+%2F+Actualit%C3%A9s+d%E2%80%99Imagine+Canada&utm_campaign=ce3934edea-Imagine_Matters_English_June_26_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_90def18014-ce3934edea-292390353
FOR THE VERY COURAGEOUS, THE ACTUAL LEGISLATION:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/annualstatutes/2010_23/FullText.html
The preceding information should not be considered legal advice. If you have any questions or concerns about the new laws, I suggest that you consult with a lawyer or the CRTC directly.
