Canadian Copyright Board To Charge For Music At Weddings, Parades

silentbrad writes "The CBC reports, 'Money can't buy love — but if you want some great tunes playing at your wedding, it's going to cost you. The Copyright Board of Canada has certified new tariffs that apply to recorded music used at live events including conventions, karaoke bars, ice shows, fairs and, yes, weddings. The fees will be collected by a not-for-profit called Re:Sound. While the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (otherwise known as SOCAN) already collects money from many of these events for the songwriters, Re:Sound will represent the record labels and performers who contributed to the music. .. For weddings, receptions, conventions, assemblies and fashion shows, the fee is $9.25 per day if fewer than 100 people are present and goes up to $39.33 for crowds of more than 500 people. If there's dancing, the fees double. Karaoke bars will pay between $86.06 and $124 annually depending on how many days per week they permit the amateur crooning. And parades, meanwhile, will be charged $4.39 for each float with recorded music participating in the parade, subject to a minimum fee of $32.55 per day.'"

Comments

When you can't innovate

[ttimes]

... then you create a legal scam to charge for everything else. Let's not congratulate this by being silent.

Re:When you can't innovate

[MickyTheIdiot]

**BUZZ**

We're sorry... your post makes the following common error...

The assumption that paying a record company equals paying an musical artist.

We realize that these common errors are are ingrained into the minds of society, but due to our allergy to bullshit we are compelled to point out the fallacy. Have a good day!

Re:When you can't innovate

[Sunshinerat]

I agree, but we must stay away from dancing or else the fees will double.

Why would it be more expensive to listen to a song by an artist when the listeners start moving their behinds to the beat?
And at what point are people dancing? Can that be defined clearly?

Re:When you can't innovate

[deathlyslow]

What's a scam is to expect someone to *work*, creating a product you want and then get all snooty when they ask you to pay them for it. And $10 is very reasonable.

Ok then. I helped my brother with his HVAC company for a few days while on vacation from my regular gig. It was a big hotel job 6 floors etc. So by your logic I should be paid each time the AC or the heat is used anywhere in that building? Right, that doesn't make any sense either. You were paid same as I was when you did the work. You're done, you want more money make more music/art/whatever the public will buy and stop whining about it.

Re:When you can't innovate

[Githaron]

The dress maker expects to get paid. The caterer expects to get paid. The photographer expects to get paid. The bartender expects to get paid. The band expects to get paid. The DJ expects to get paid. And why shouldn't they? They are all working and using skills they have spent years and decades training in. They have overhead, they have expenses, they have employees... music isn't free to make. Even a simple indie album will often cost about $8k-10k on the low end to produce and that ignores everyone's time and energy to write, rehearse and perform.

First off, assuming the music was legally purchased, they did get paid for their music. It is not like people are handing out the CDs or MP3s at the parties so that everyone can listen to them at their leisure. They are broadcasting the audio over a very limited area and the music must be listened to at that moment.

Second, if you noticed everyone you just listed is performing a service once and getting paid once. If they want to get paid a second time, they have to perform the service a second time. I just checked Canada's copyright length. It is life plus 50 years. What non-intellectual property based job do you know of in which a person can perform a service once not only get paid for their whole life but also most of their children's lives? Why should artists get special treatment? I understand that there are costs to recording music but not 150 years worth. 5 to 10 years from the publication date would be more than reasonable. If you can't make any money in that amount of time, you need to go into another business.

Lastly, as others have mentioned. With the exception of indie music where the artists use their own funds and do everything themselves, very little of the money from copyright actually gets to the artists.

Re:When you can't innovate

[CubicleZombie]

I already purchased a license to use your product for personal non-commercial use when I bought your CD. A wedding is personal use. Doesn't matter how many people are there or what they're doing.

If the DJ is supplying the music, then take it up with the DJ. Not my problem.

Re:When you can't innovate

[mooingyak]

What non-intellectual property based job do you know of in which a person can perform a service once not only get paid for their whole life but also most of their children's lives?

Nit: You actually understate it. Life + 50 means that anything I create in my lifetime is likely to still be under copyright when my children die, and will still be so as my grandchildren enter their old age. Assume a life expectancy of 70 years (and that's putting it on the low side). I had my youngest child when I turned 30. Assuming she has a kid at 30, that means I'm 60. So my grandchild is 10 years old when I die, and the copyright lasts until that kid is 60. Not to mention that I'm in the US where the term is Life + 70, which would mean that the copyright is still valid when my *grandchildren* die.

"If there's dancing, the fees double."

[dstyle5]

What if people are smiling, double the fee again? Its sunny outside, only 1.5 times the fee? Liquor is served, 4 times fee? Its a Saturday...? Great, can't wait to see the RIAA, err SOCAN creeping up your friends wedding.

Re:"If there's dancing, the fees double."

[Hatta]

Because, Fuck You, that's why.

How about instead

[hort_wort]

We charge them those prices for advertising their music to everyone and associating it with a positive memory?

Re:Dancing?

[trimpnick]

No, they'll probably tack on those fees by supposing you'll dance at a wedding party. There will be no burden of proof with this, not unlike the levy on blank media

Who is receiving the money?

[Herkum01]

I could support something like this IF, VERY BIG IF, the money goes to support the people actually produced the music. Not Copyright Board of Canada, the MIAA, or RIAA, or Sony, or any of the big companies out there. It needs to go to the artists. Otherwise it is just becomes another organization gaming the laws to become a bureaucracy that is a parasite upon other peoples works.

Re:Who is receiving the money?

[Missing.Matter]

The line you're towing is the recording industry's, not the artist's. The recording industry are the ones who don't make money off of live performances, so they're the ones who need to make money off of the 15 year old and the DJ, so they're the ones offering the different licensing agreements, etc.

AS an artist, if people aren't listening to your song, they're going to listen to someone else's. That's just a fact. Therefore its in your best interest to get your song played in as many places in front of as many people as you can. After people hear it and like it, then you hold a series of concerts around the country where everyone hearing your song gets to hear you play it live. And that's how you make your money: actually being an artist, creating and proliferating art. This whole, write once, rake in money forever scheme that's being perpetrated is complete nonsense.

So glad.....

[Lumpy]

That you Canadians are doing what the United States is telling you to do.

Good lap dog!

And yes, I am trying to enrage you, why are you people not fighting the corruption that is bleeding over the border from our country? The more you just let this stuff happen, the more they will try and roll over you.

Three observations

[Dzimas]

I wouldn't have an issue with this, except for three things: (1) This money won't find its way into the pockets of artists. It'll end up in the hands of publishing companies, lawyers, managers and the record label because of the onerous contracts that performers are required to sign to break into the business. (2) Songs played at weddings tend to be mass market tunes or old classics. Handing over an extra few thousand dollars to Lady GaGa or whatever company holds the rights to Frank Sinatra's tunes does absolutely nothing to support up and coming Canadian musicians. (3) The government department responsible for collecting and disbursing this fee will cost taxpayers millions of dollars for the "benefit" of collecting and forwarding revenue to foreign entertainment companies.

Complete comedy of errors

[geekmux]

I don't know what sounds more ludicrous to me...

The concept of "music police" running around trying to enforce such nonsense, or...

trying to convince anyone that any organization affiliated or representing the record labels would be considered a "not-for-profit".

Give me a break.

Re:Dancing?

[Dexter Herbivore]

What gets me, is what right do they have to charge for dancing? They're theoretically charging for the performance of the music, understandable... but what the hell does dancing have to do with anything?

As A Photographer, I Want In!!!

[ryanisflyboy]

First, I will charge you the sitting fee. Then the printing fee. Then I'll add a special fee on blank printing paper to cover my losses every time someone steals one of my pictures. Part of that is your fault, obviously. Then I'm going to charge a fee for delivering the print to you. A charge for placing it in your album. A fee for placing it on Facebook, another one for your iPhone, another one for your digital picture frame, another one for... well, you get the point. I'll charge yet another fee _every time_ you look at the picture for the next 110 years. Finally, if you show the picture to someone else I'm going to charge you double. If you show it to 5 or more people then you'll need to pay $100. If you describe the picture, you'll need to pay a fee. If you use part of my picture in another picture, fee. If you want to re-interpret the picture, fee. If you want to digitize the picture - HELL NO! Not allowed. I'm going to hire lots of lawyers to threaten you with lawsuits if you break any of these rules. I will also be hiring private investigators to pose as your friends to try and trick you in to showing the pictures. If you show them my picture of you without paying the fee, then off to jail with you, you dirty crook. When the police raid your home to search for your criminal copying device (printer), I will be there with them going over all your albums. I am sure you are a thief. When I find the unauthorized images I know you stole, you'll pay $10,000 per violation. If you place any of my images of you on the Internet, then your ISP will be shutting off your connection, confiscating all your website addresses, and barring you from even seeing a computer for years. Simply looking at my image of you without a license is theft, and you are a no-good-rotten-thief deserving shame, public ridicule, and jail time. You are making me, the lowly artist, starve! Oh, by the way, I am not actually going to do any of this. I'm going to sell all the rights to my images to a large multi-national global corporation with incredible political power who will do all of this. Not for me or on my behalf, but for them. You can pretend it is for me, if that makes you feel any better.

Now, who would like to sign up for a session with me? You know you want my goods and services! If I don't have a line out the door by end of day, then it is because all of you are all STEALING my work. I suffer at least... $2 billion... in losses a year (yeah, that sounds right). If you weren't stealing my pictures, then I'd clearly have plenty of customers. It is all your fault my business is suffering, you rotten crooks... er, I mean customers!