The Copyright Board’s hearing dealing with performing and reproduction rights in songs and sound recordings in Canada by commercial radio stations kicks off in Ottawa Dec. 2 .
The Canadian Assn. of Broadcasters is at bat first at the two week hearing. Afterwards, SOCAN (performing rights in songs), CMRRA-SODRAC Inc., (reproduction rights in songs), AVLA-SOPROQ (reproduction rights in recordings) and NRCC and ARTISTI (performing rights in recordings) will each have their turn at the plate.
This “Super Hearing” is a landmark. It is the first time Canadian-based music labels have sought broadcast mechanicals from broadcasters, making it one of most important proceeding ever for broadcasters, record labels, music publishers, songwriters, and artists alike.
While this is the first time the federal Board has consolidated all radio-related tariffs into a single proceeding, the individual tariffs filed by the collectives are what is being considered, and the result will be a series of decisions, certifying each individual tariff on terms to be set by the Board.
The individual tariffs, and the businesses of the collectives, have not, however, been merged, and each...
++ Canadian independent label Quinlan Road is offering customers via its web store a complete and immediate 112 K download of Loreena McKennitt’s new recording “A Midwinter Night's Dream” as well as all albums from all of her catalog when they order the CD. The offer runs until Jan. 31, 2009. McKennitt seeks to ensure that her fans have the music while they wait for the new recording to arrive. Hop to Loreena shop at: http://quinlanroad.com/explorethemusic/5.asp
++ CBC-TV’s “The Hour” host George Stroumboulopoulos received the Bob Edwards Award today (Nov. 14, 2008) in Calgary. Stroumboulopoulos is a former MuchMusic VJ (Yo George, that handle follows both you and CNN’s John “J.D.” Roberts forever). The award is passed out to Canadian journalists who possess the same literary spirit as Edwards whom columnist Allan Fotheringham calls “the finest journalist Canada has ever had the pleasure of reading.” Edwards passed in 1922 after irregularly publishing the Calgary Eye Opener for 20 years.
++ It may have taken him 12 album and over a decade but Nova Scotia MC/producer Classified (Luke Boyd) has signed with a major label, Sony Music Canada. The Enfield, Nova Scotia...
The Copyright Board of Canada has finally issued the second part of its Tariff 22 decision on Oct. 24, 2008 dealing with communications to the public by telecommunications of musical works over the Internet.
The first part of this tariff was published on Oct. 18, 2007 and dealt exclusively with online music services.
The new decision, retroactive to Jan. 1, 1996 (much cheering here by music publishers and songwriters) deals with all other uses of music on the Internet, namely Internet radio and television, other audio sites and game sites.
For radio stations that already pay royalties to the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) for their conventional activities, the same rates are certified for their Internet activities—1.5% if low use; 4.2% otherwise.
For commercial, pay and specialty television, pay audio services and satellite radio services, the rates are the same as what these users already pay or will be paying SOCAN—1.9% for television and 12.35% for pay audio services (the rate for satellite radio has yet to be set).
CBC, TV Ontario and Tele-Quebec will pay a proportion of 10% of the amounts they already pay to SOCAN....
For Canadian Music Week, the Canadian Independent Record Production Assn., the East Coast Music Assn. (ECMA), the Western Canadian Musical Alliance, the check is not in the mail If the Conservatives continue in power.
Nor should members of the Holy Fucks hold their breath waiting for federal government tour funding.
Hundreds of Canadian cultural groups and artists recently learned they would not be receiving federal support in 2010 due to the Conservatives stripping $45.5-million from nearly a dozen arts programs.
Arts funding has emerged as a hot button election issue, particularly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended his government’s cuts with American-style, anti-intellectualism rhetoric, arguing that “ordinary people” object to tax dollars being used to fund glitzy galas at arts and cultural events…...Ordinary people understand we have to live within a budget.”
Yet, a July, 2008 report “Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy” by the Conference Board of Canada indicated that the economic footprint of Canada’s culture sector was $84.6 billion in 2007, or 7.4 per cent of Canada’s total real GDP, including direct,...
A report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts that global spending on recorded music will slip worldwide from $33.4 billion in 2007 to $32.5 billion by 2012.
While digital music services have yet to fully live up to their potential in becoming the next medium of choice for music purchases, digital formats are still expected to grow substantially in that time.
PWC predicts, in fact, that digital revenues will overtake physical revenues in Asia by 2009; Latin America by 2010; by 2011 in North America, and by 2010 for the rest of the world.
While mobile will edge out internet-based distribution as the more lucrative sector, the internet will remain the fastest growing, rising to $8.6 billion by 2012, while mobile phones will bring in $10.3 billion of revenue.
According to PWC, there were 361 million songs downloaded via mobile phone worldwide in 2007. It predicts growth of about 4% to 373 million downloads this year, and to 580 million by 2012.
Meanwhile, single track sales continue to be the dominant component of digital sales, but album downloads increased by whopping 54% in 2007 over the prior year.
PWC pegged the world’s music subscription market at...
Following through on its 2007 throne speech, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-61 on June 12, 2008 in the House of Commons with the intent to bring Canada’s existing copyright laws up to speed with the realities of the digital era.
Bill C-61, however, is not ever going to see the light of day.
Copyright legislation is so contentious in its nature, that for any minority government it is difficult to find a balance that will have a chance of adoption by all parties.
Given the length of time a bill needs from introduction through third reading and proclamation, it is likely that this proposed bill will die on the order paper at election time.
Meanwhile, Industry Minister Jim Prentice would have us believe that he introduced amendments with a “Made-in-Canada” approach benefiting all Canadians that balances the needs of users and creators.
The Canadian Recording Industry Assn., the Canadian Independent Record Production Assn., the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, and the American Federation of Musicians have all lined up to applaud the draft legislation.
However, the 200-strong Canadian Music Creators Coalition has...
With the increasing popularity of such on-line broadcasters as Joost, Hulu and YouTube, and with advertisers increasingly embracing marketing strategies targeting Internet users, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission is preparing to consider Internet regulation.
The CRTC has launched two major reviews of Internet technologies pertaining to the TV and radio content that Canadians receive through their computers or mobile devices.
The Commission plans to begin public hearings on the issue in late 2009. It is now asking for written input from interested parties.
The decision to consider Canadian Internet regulation runs counter to a CRTC decision in 1999, when the commission decided it would not impose rules on Canadian Internet businesses.
The CRTC could now decide to limit Canadians' access to online broadcasters and Internet-based radio stations. It could also consider a levy charged to Internet service providers to pay for the creation of Canadian content online.
For years, key Canadian music industry players have been increasingly vocal about the new web-based music services being exempt from statutory domestic music quotas....
At this time when so many forces are seeking to diminish copyright protections and devalue artistic expression, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has introduced a “Bill of Rights” for all songwriters and composers.
Says ASCAP president/chairperson Marilyn Bergman, "Given the many issues surrounding the music industry today, it can be all too easy to overlook the source of it all--individual songwriters, lyricists and composers. Our goal is to remind lawmakers, the general public and music creators themselves of the rights that are inherent in their art.”
The ASCAP Bill of Rights includes:
1. We have the right to be compensated for the use of our creative works, and share in the revenues that they generate.
2. We have the right to license our works and control the ways in which they are used.
3. We have the right to withhold permission for uses of our works on artistic, economic or philosophical grounds.
4. We have the right to protect our creative works to the fullest extent of the law from all forms of piracy, theft and unauthorized use, which deprive us of our right to earn a living based on our creativity.
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences blew it again this year.
The standout performance of the Junos didn’t take place on its nationally
televised Juno show but during its non-televised gala dinner and awards the night
before where 32 of the 39 awards were handed out.
It was there that all of the nominees in the World Music Album category,
singers Alex Cuba, Celso Machado, and Kiran Ahluwalia as well as guitarist Jesse
Cook and world music ensemble Autorickshaw joined together for an electrifying
celebration.
But Canada’s public missed it.
Canadians also missed out on some potentially great performances by such Juno
winners as jazz singer Sophie Milman who won Vocal Jazz Album of the Year;
Ottawa native Belly who won Rap Recording of the Year; Winnipeg’s Nathan who
took home Roots & Traditional Album of the Year; and sultry diva Serena Ryder
who was named New Artist of the Year.
Why weren’t these acts on the televised show?
Many industry figures here continue to question the longstanding CARAS
contention that some music genres do not work on a national TV broadcast and are
therefore not considered for the main event....
The extent to which commercial radio stations in Canada expose the music of emerging Canadian artists has been a hot topic of discussion for over a decade, most extensively during the two most recent reviews of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Commercial Radio policy.
In 2006, as a result of its commercial radio policy review, the federal regulator announced that radio licensees would now be asked to make specific commitments to provide airplay for and to promote emerging Canadian artists.
However, the Commission declined to define “an emerging Canadian artist.” As well, no timeline was set for the introduction of the category.
However, the CRTC had concluded that Canada’s commercial radio broadcasters should make commitments to broadcast selections by emerging Canadian artists and to promote such artists in their applications for new licenses, license renewals and transfers of ownership or control of radio stations. The Commission might then decide to impose these as conditions of license following the public process.
In their 2007 report on overhauling the regulatory framework for Canadian broadcasting services, Laurence...
The Juno’s real power broker is CTV. Not the Canadian Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences (CARAS).
That CTV makes many of the decisions with the annual Junos is again evidenced
this year.
Firstly, on Jan. 29 just after 7 P.M EST—about 10 minutes after CTV’s “Eh Talk” began airing with the news (and too late for the days news cycle for most media), CTV and the CARAS announced via email to national media that Feist, Finger Eleven and Michael Buble are slated to perform on the 2008 Juno Awards being held April 6 from Calgary’s Pengrowth Saddledome.
It has since been announced that Avril Lavigne, Measha Brueggergosman and
Anne Murray will also perform. Murray, in particular, insures a strong viewing audience for the Juno broadcast.
Secondly, the Juno nominees were announced at a press conference held in
Toronto on February 5th, at the media witching hour of 8:30 A.M. EST
Why the early announcement time which is unprecedented for a Juno media
gathering?
Well, a portion of the Juno nominee media conference was broadcast live on
“Canada AM” on CTV and CTV Newsnet, on the CTV Broadband Network at CTV.ca and for a...
