SOCAN Reports Canadian Internet Music Streaming Copyright Revenues Soar 525%
SOCAN Reports Canadian Internet Music Streaming Copyright Revenues Soar 525%
SOCAN, Canada’s largest music copyright collective, released its annual reportthis week, reporting record revenues and a massive increase in earnings from Internet streaming services. SOCAN reports that copyright revenues from Internet streaming hit $21.3 million, a 525% increase over the $3.4 million generated in 2013. The huge increase in Internet streaming revenues in Canada points to why…
Greg Nisbet, founder & CEO of Toronto-based digital music company Mediazoic, argues in favour of a rewrite of the financially threadbare Tariff 8, opining that "fairness" to creators is good for business, his included. The following is taken from a longer op-Ed that Nisbet wrote for the Music Canada website.
... Streaming companies do need an environment in which to make a profit. But rather than push for lower rates, my company Mediazoic) chose to innovate the business model. Basically, we believe the success of each project we undertake is based on three parties – us for providing the platform, the rights holders of the music played on our system, and our station hosts (clients) for getting it out there. As such, when planning and implementing a project, we always strive for a fair and transparent split of the revenue between the parties. This isn’t just because we’re nice and we love music – we believe that in the music business of the future, the most successful companies will be the most fair and transparent.
Read Greg Nisbet's entire opinion piece as a guest blogger on Music Canada's website.
It’s always been a mixed blessing to live next to the economic and cultural behemoth to our south. On one hand we have access to the world’s largest market, while still enjoying the more liberal and enlightened Canadian life. On the other hand, they can easily overwhelm us with sheer bulk and easy access to our market.
One of Canada’s most valuable resources – and most profitable exports – is our culture. Per capita, we may be the world’s largest exporter of culture and talent. This has been made possible by the wise decisions of our hard-working parents and forward-thinking government policy to support the arts in schools and in the marketplace and to provide developmental resources to Canada’s creative class.
We’ve grown successive generations of creators who are the equal to any of their global counterparts. And we have a vibrant national cultural industry.
Historically we’ve ensured that our creators are not just “sponsored” as they grow, but able to earn a sustainable livelihood. But now we face a major sea change in the marketplace that begins with Canadian music and will ultimately swamp Canadian television, film and even literature.
It is clear that in the future most music will be consumed through digital streaming services,offering low-cost “all you can eat” subscription plans in place of selling“à la carte” songs or albums. This will become true for television and film as well.
Streaming services want rights holders to believe that, with universal penetration, we will earn much more than we used to collect selling our creations. The reality is quite different. Historically, huge global hit songs would generate millions and fund the industry’s investment in tomorrow’s hit-makers – our R&D. Today, in the streaming model, the return is a fraction of that.
And in Canada, we are beginning to set rates that are dramatically less than that!
I know that the Board operates with the best of intentions, but I am afraid in the case of Tariff 8 it has miscalculated what this industry needs, and Canadian music creators will suffer the consequences.
In short, if the Copyright’s Board inadvertent devaluation of our music is widely adopted and spreads to other rights, we’re dead. Our homegrown Canadian music industry cannot survive this. We will shrivel and die. And when we shrink, it will affect all the workers who support us, from graphic artists to marketing people to truck drivers to hotel workers to stagehands and software engineers -- because many of us will simply no longer be able to afford to be creators and marketers of music, or to put our shows on the road.
Perhaps the worst result of the low rate is that we will be granting a 90% discount to American streaming companies that covet our market and will eagerly sweep in here with powerful and well-funded systems that will wipe out any Canadian-owned competition- all at the expense of the creators you have historically supported with thoughtful policy.
My message to our Government and the Copyright Board is simple: Please pay attention to the marketplace, because that’s where we make our living. And please recognize that if our digital marketplace is to flourish, it will depend on the health and sustainability of our creative industries, who provide the content that fuels the digital marketplace. Please reconsider Tariff 8. And let’s sit down together to find a way to protect this most valuable of Canadian resources - our culture – in the new economy.
Please don't let this be the day the music died.
Bob Ezrin has produced some of the world's most important music artists, including Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Johnny Reid and Young Artists for Haiti. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2013. In 2013, he was also named an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music.
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE HILL TIMES, SEPT. 22, 2014.
By Katherine Ward - On May 16, 2014, the Copyright Board of Canada issued its decision setting rates for Re:Sound’s Tariff 8 – Non-Interactive & Semi-Interactive Webcasts, 2009-2012.
The Tariff 8 decision is a serious insult to Canada’s musicians because it sets the world’s worst royalty rates for non-interactive (e.g. CBC Music) and semi-interactive (i.e. Songza and Pandora) music streaming.
As noted previously, the new rates certified by the Board amount to about 10% of what digital services companies have been paying in Canada and less than 10% of what those same services pay in the United States.
In The Rambler by Graham Henderson: Tariff 8 decision establishes “10% of Nothing Rates”, Music Canada President Graham Henderson poses the rhetorical question: “Do Canadian plumbers get paid wages equivalent to 10% of American plumbers? Teachers? Auto workers? Farmers? Who? What profession receives compensation in Canada for their labour that is equal to 10% of the wages paid across the border?”
The answer, obviously, is nobody.
Plumbers
Median Annual Salary according to payscale.com
Canada = $57,950
U.S. = $48,632
Professors
Median Annual Salary for a “Professor, Postsecondary/Higher Education” according to payscale.com
Canada = $91,550
U.S. = $83,801
Auto Workers
Median Annual Salary of “Assembly Line Worker, Automotive” according to payscale.com
Canada = $50,565
U.S. = $32,150
Farmers
Median Annual Salary according to payscale.com
Canada = $42,000
U.S. = $32,030
Despite the absurdity of a Canadian earning less than 10% of what his or her counterpart south of the border earns for the same job, the Copyright Board of Canada has decided that professional musicians should get paid 90% less for certain types of music streaming. Some people may argue that Tariff 8 isn’t an artist’s only source of income. But the reality is that for these types of services (CBC Music, Stingray, Songza, etc.), Tariff 8 royalties are the only guaranteed source of income for a performer. Artists deserve to be fairly compensated for their music. The Tariff 8 decision sends a message that music is not valued as a profession here, and this message is completely inconsistent with Canadian values. The Canadian government – who did not create this problem – should step in and take the necessary steps to fix Tariff 8 so Canada is not offside with royalty rates in the United States and around the world.
Send a copy of I Stand for Music’s Open Letter to Industry Minister James Moore to show your support for Canada’s music community.
