Music At Work in Your Business & SOCAN

Value, accessibility and convenience 

The most immediate way to sense the value of music to your business is to imagine your business without it. And our customers, tens of thousands across Canada, consider music so integral to their business that it’s part of their brand – as important as décor. Here is a brief explanation of why you, as an owner or operator, require a performing rights licence when you use copyright-protected music in your facility.

SOCAN stands for Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. We ensure that music creators and their publishers get paid for the communication to the public and public performance of their music. SOCAN does this by granting performing rights licences to businesses and individuals publicly playing or broadcasting live or recorded music.

SOCAN will grant such a licence, allowing you access to virtually the world’s entire repertoire of copyright-protected music, when the applicable licence fees are paid. These fees are based on tariff rates set by the Copyright Board of Canada.

There are more than 21 different SOCAN tariffs to accommodate the many different uses of music. Some of the most common ones are:

• Live Music – Tariff 3A
• Exotic Dancers – Tariff 3C
• Motion Picture Theatres – Tariff 6
• Rental facilities in which either live or recorded music is used – Tariff 8
• Recorded Background Music (not for dancing) – Tariff 15A
• Music on Hold over your telephone system – Tariff 15B
• Recorded Music for Dancing – Tariff 18
• Fitness Activities – Tariff 19
• Karaoke – Tariff 20

Music At Work In Your Business & SOCAN

Value, accessibility and convenience 

The most immediate way to sense the value of music to your business is to imagine your business without it. And SOCAN customers, tens of thousands across Canada, consider music so integral to their business that it’s part of their brand – as important as décor. Here is a brief explanation of why you, as an owner or operator, require a performing rights licence when you use copyright-protected music in your facility. That’s where SOCAN comes in.

SOCAN stands for Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada.   We ensure that music creators and their publishers get paid for the communication to the public and public performance of their music. SOCAN does this by granting performing rights licences to businesses and individuals publicly playing or broadcasting live or recorded music.

SOCAN will grant such a licence, allowing you access to virtually the world’s entire repertoire of copyright-protected music, when the applicable licence fees are paid. These fees are based on tariff rates set by the Copyright Board of Canada.

There are more than 21 different SOCAN tariffs to accommodate the many different uses of music. Some of the most common ones are: 

Live Music – Tariff 3A
The annual fee is 3% of the compensation for that live music. For example, if the annual value of what you’re paying for the live music is $100,000, your annual fee is $3,000.

Exotic Dancers – Tariff 3C
Under 3C, the annual fee is set according to a scale based on your annual days of operation with dancers and the capacity of the room.

Motion Picture Theatres – Tariff 6
For any and all music played in movie theatres (as background AND in the films themselves), the fee is $1.11 per seat.

Rental Functions where either live or recorded music is used – Tariff 8
This tariff pertains to banquet facilities, meeting rooms, reception areas, etc. This is NOT an annual fee tariff, but rather is charged per event, and the fee is calculated based on the capacity of the room and whether or not dancing is part of the function. Please note that while it is the facility that holds the licence and is legally responsible, it is common practice to pass along the fee to the client as one of the costs of the function.

For full details on these and other SOCAN tariffs, or to find out more about SOCAN, visit www.socan.ca or give us a call. For new customers, please call 1-866-944-6210 and for existing customer queries, please call 1-866-944-6223.

Sourced: Vic Gailinnas, Industry Relationship Executive, Business Development Licensing Department, Socan