Help Save I (Heart) Music from SOCAN

Sometimes, ok most of the time, I think that SOCAN exists for the good of SOCAN and not for the good of music, musicians or songwriters. The latest victim of SOCAN is the blog I (Heart) Music (one of Canada's elite music blogs.)

From a post today:

"Here's the problem: yesterday I was contacted by SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. It turns out that anytime a concert happens in which at least one member of any of the bands is also a member of SOCAN, the person promoting the show is legally required to pay fees to the Society to cover copyright royalties associated with the live performance of SOCAN-member songs. It doesn't matter if the band in question has already been paid directly for their performance, under Canadian copyright law SOCAN is legally entitled to either 3% of the door or $35, whichever is greater.

This isn't something I'd ever done, since I was once told, years ago, that if a show doesn't make any profit, then it doesn't matter. (Evidently the person who told me that didn't know the difference between "gross" and "net".) And, operating under that principle -- coupled with a firm belief that since no one's at a show to see me, I don't really deserve a cut of the door -- I've always made an effort to pay out any money received at the door to the bands who actually performed and got people out. In cases where there wasn't enough from the door to cover those costs, I've dipped into my own pocket to pay -- after all, as I said, concert-goers are there to see the band, not whoever organized it, so there's really not much reason for me to benefit financially from the hard work of the musicians on stage.Because of this, of the approximately 70 shows I've promoted over the last three years, there's only a handful from which I can say I actually made any kind of money.

Obviously, that's no defence. Being ignorant of a law doesn't make that law any less valid, and, as such, whatever the total comes to I'll pay, whether I can afford it or not.

Unfortunately, given that the royalty fees are going to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,000, this is something that falls a whole lot closer to "not afford". It's a lot amount of money, particularly when you factor in finances that are already stretched thin by a wedding that's less than three months away."

You can read the full post at I (Heart) Music.

At the top of the right hand column of that blog is a new donate button to try to raise the $2000 that SoCan feels they are entitled to (although as you read the musicians already got all of the money from the shows.) Please give what you can, if you don't want to visit the blog the donate button links to this.

Also if you are a musician or songwriter, you might want to think twice about SOCAN membership as it may get alot harder to get shows if you're a member. Nothing against unions or professional organizations generally but, after this incident, some promoters may see all the money +3% as excessive.