COPYRIGHT TARIFF (2005)

 

Music is used by business for a variety of purposes (ex. phones on hold, elevators etc). Care needs to be made to ensure that a business is not producing a broadcast, or producing a means to undermine the rights of the artist who makes music for a living. This care must be implemented to be fair to producers and users.

 

It is being proposed that royalties be collected by the Neighboring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC) for the public performance or the communication to the public by telecommunication, in Canada, of Published Sound Recording Embodying Musical Works and Performers' Performances of Such Works for the Years 2003 to 2009.

 

This Tariff is being recommended by the NRCC. The NRCC is a non-profit umbrella collective, created in 1997, to administer the rights of performers and makers of sound recordings. This is done through five member collectives: the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), ArtistI, the Audio-Video Licensing Agency (AVLA), the Société de gestion collective des droits des producteurs de phonogrammes et vidéogrammes du Québec (SOPROQ), and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema Television and Radio Artists

Performers Rights Society (ACTRA PRS).

It has been further discovered that this tariff applies only to Canadian Music!

 

Most Business already pay tariff fees to SOCAN a copyright collective representing more than 75,000 Canadian creators and publishers and, through its affiliated performing rights organizations (PROs), hundreds of thousands more worldwide. These are the people who create the music that's such an important part of our lives. If you use music as part of your business or functions, you usually need a performing rights license. SOCAN will grant such a license, allowing you access to virtually the world's entire repertoire of copyright-protected music for public performance, at rates approved by the Copyright Board of Canada. A SOCAN performing rights licensee ensures that the works and the rights of those who create and publish music are respected.

 

Businesses that thought that their license payment to SOCAN was sufficient to cover all use of music at your events, may be wrong. If approved by the Copyright board each event will be expected to pay an annual license fee of 2.1 cents for every ticket sold. Chambers of Commerce who hold tradeshows or other events that use background music would also be required to pay this fee.

 

“Background music” means published sound recordings embodying musical works and performers’ performances of musical works embodied in published sound recordings used as background in establishments, excluding any use of music with live entertainment or a live event, such as sports events and fashion shows, and excluding as well any use of music to accompany dancing, dance instruction, skating, fitness activities or other similar activities, but including any use of music and telephone on hold;

 

“Establishment” means each and every premise, other than a private residence, including without limiting the application of the tariff, any restaurant, bar, office, work-place, place of business, park, place frequented by the public, hotel, motel, hospital, club, school, showroom, motion picture theatre, sports facility, dance hall, theme park, exhibition or fair, as well as all means of public conveyance, including aircraft, ships, railway trains and buses;

 

The Canadian Society of Copyright Consumers was the group tasked with watching over the Copyright Board however with the retirement of their last Executive Director, Mr. J. Lyman Potts, the group has ceased to exist.

 

If this tariff is approved it could be disastrous for our event management businesses and organizations.

 

Other organizations opposing this tariff are:

 

·  Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association

·  Canadian Association of Fairs and Expeditions

·  Hotel Association of Canada

·  CHUM Satellite Services

·  Star Choice

 

THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS

 

That the Secretary General of the Copyright Board of Canada put regulations in place to ensure that the Copyright Board;

 

1. NOT accept this application to collect the proposed royalties;

 

2. does not accept this application specific to Canadian artists;

 

3. expand the objectors list and offer increased opportunity for public consultation and input; and

 

4. should the royalty be deemed necessary, The Chamber recommends that it not be retroactive.