Re:Sound Music Licensing Company

Last updated

Re:Sound is the non-profit performance rights organization in Canada that collects and administers Neighbouring Rights royalties on behalf of recording artists, including featured artists and session musicians and record labels in Canada. [1] Re:Sound was founded in 1997 and in French is referred to as Ré:Sonne.

Contents

Re:Sound licenses recorded music to businesses across many industries, including radio stations, satellite radio, digital music services, nightclubs, bars, restaurants, retail establishments and others. The royalties that are collected from licence fees are distributed to the recording artists and record labels that create the music that is used by these businesses.

Collecting tariffs

Following Canada's Copyright Act, Re:Sound files tariffs before the Copyright Board of Canada on behalf or recording artists and record labels, contacts and grants licences to all Canadian commercial radio broadcasters, businesses using recorded music and background music suppliers. Re:Sound also works with similar organisations around the world to collect royalties for Canadian music creators when their intellectual property is used in other jurisdictions.

Once a tariff is certified by the Copyright Board and the tariff rates and regulations have been established by the Board. Re:Sound can begin to make contact with businesses across Canada to notify them of their possible obligations under a new tariff.

Re:Sound licences are "blanket" licences, which mean that businesses can use as much music as they wish. This eliminates the need for a business to clear large numbers of recordings with individual rights holders.

Re:Sound currently licenses businesses under tariffs for Commercial Radio, CBC Radio, Pay Audio, Background Music (restaurants, bars, retail establishments, etc.), Satellite Radio, Live Events (conference centres, hotels, karaoke bars, etc.), Dance (nightclubs, adult entertainment establishments, etc.), Fitness Activities (gyms, fitness clubs, classes, etc.)

Distributing royalties

Re:Sound keeps track of millions of pieces of data from Canadian commercial radio stations, satellite radio, pay audio, CBC and others. After processing and summarizing, the data is used in the distribution of royalties to the artists. Royalties collected are distributed equally between artists and record companies less only actual costs (under 15%).

Member Organizations

Re:Sound has 3 performer and 2 maker member organizations:

Performer Organizations

Maker Organizations

Related Research Articles

A private copying levy is a government-mandated scheme in which a special tax or levy is charged on purchases of recordable media. Such taxes are in place in various countries and the income is typically allocated to the developers of "content".

Copyrights can either be licensed or assigned by the owner of the copyright. A copyright collective is a non-governmental body created by copyright law or private agreement which licenses copyrighted works on behalf of the authors and engages in collective rights management. Copyright societies track all the events and venues where copyrighted works are used and ensure that the copyright holders listed with the society are remunerated for such usage. The copyright society publishes its own tariff scheme on its websites and collects a nominal administrative fee on every transaction.

A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer private performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder. The interest of the organisations varies: many have the sole focus of musical works, while others may also encompass works and authors for audiovisual, drama, literature, or the visual arts.

PRS for Music British music rights society

PRS for Music Limited is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes collective rights management for musical works on behalf of its 160,000 members. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 following the MCPS-PRS Alliance. In 2009, PRS and MCPS-PRS Alliance realigned their brands and became PRS for Music.

A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.

Copyright law of Canada

The copyright law of Canada governs the legally enforceable rights to creative and artistic works under the laws of Canada. Canada passed its first colonial copyright statute in 1832 but was subject to imperial copyright law established by Britain until 1921. Current copyright law was established by the Copyright Act of Canada which was first passed in 1921 and substantially amended in 1988, 1997, and 2012. All powers to legislate copyright law are in the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada by virtue of section 91(23) of the Constitution Act, 1867.

The Copyright Act of Canada is the federal statute governing copyright law in Canada. It is jointly administered by the Department of Industry Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage. The Copyright Act was first passed in 1921 and substantially amended in 1988 and 1997. Several attempts were made between 2005 and 2011 to amend the Act, but each of the bills failed to pass due to political opposition. In 2011, with a majority in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party introduced Bill C-11, titled the Copyright Modernization Act. Bill C-11 was passed and received Royal Assent on June 29, 2012.

Audio Home Recording Act

The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) amended the United States copyright law by adding Chapter 10, "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media". The act enabled the release of recordable digital formats such as Sony and Philips' Digital Audio Tape without fear of contributory infringement lawsuits.

A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an individual or company seeking to use another's intellectual property can do so without seeking the rights holder's consent, and pays the rights holder a set fee for the license. This is an exception to the general rule under intellectual property laws that the intellectual property owner enjoys exclusive rights that it may license – or decline to license – to others.

APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).

Music industry Companies and individuals that create and sell music

The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.

Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without a separate agreement.

Phonographic Performance Limited British music licensing company

Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is a British music copyright collective. It is a private limited company that is registered in the UK. PPL was founded by Decca Records and EMI and incorporated on 12 May 1934, and undertakes collective rights management of sound recordings on behalf of its record-company members, and distributes the fees collected to both its record company members and performer members. As of 2019, PPL collected royalties for over 110,000 performers and recording rightsholders.

A music synchronization license, or "sync" for short, is a music license granted by the holder of the copyright of a particular composition, allowing the licensee to synchronize ("sync") music with some kind of visual media output.

SoundExchange

SoundExchange is a non-profit collective rights management organization. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings. It pays featured and non-featured artists and master rights owners for the non-interactive use of sound recordings under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 112 and 17 U.S.C. § 114.

The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA) is a music licensing agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1975, CMRRA is a music licensing collective representing music rights-holders who range in size from large multinational music publishers to individual songwriters. On their behalf, CMRRA issues licences to individuals or organizations for the reproduction of songs on various media.

An Internet radio license is a specific type of broadcast license that allows the licensee to operate an Internet radio station. The licensing authority and number of licenses required varies from country to country, with some countries requiring multiple to cover various areas of a station's operation, and other countries not having stringent licensing procedures in place. Licensing costs also vary, based on the number of listeners that a station has, as well as other factors such as the number of songs played, the number of broadcast hours, and whether tracks are dubbed to a digital playout system.

Music Reports

Music Reports serves individuals and organizations seeking expertise and solutions in music rights licensing, administration, royalty accounting, and software development and hosting. Music Reports operates the largest registry of worldwide music rights and related business information.

Collection administration of copyrights describes the use in Canadian law of collective societies to manage licenses for copyrighted material belonging to more than one copyright owner. These collective societies are responsible for granting permission to use the works they manage and setting out what conditions users of their works must follow. Examples of collective societies in Canada include: Christian Video Licensing International and the Canadian Broadcasters Rights Agency

References

  1. "Information about SOCAN and Re:Sound Fees". University of British Columbia.