Rights Management

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SOCAN administers and protects the performing and reproduction rights of more than 150,000 songwriters, music publishers, composers, and visual artists. We offer an integrated approach to rights management and compelling solutions for our rights holders’ reproduction and performing rights. Through reciprocal agreements with more than 100 copyright collectives in 214 countries, we collect and distribute royalties internationally for the use of copyrighted works, connecting millions of creators worldwide.

Performing Rights

The performing right is the right to perform a song or composition in public – such as in a live concert, background music, a radio or TV broadcast, a streaming playlist at a bar, or any other type of public performance. The performing right gives copyright owners of songs the sole right to perform, or authorize the performance in public, of their songs. SOCAN administers these performing rights on behalf of its members by collecting and distributing royalties when songs are publicly performed.

To have SOCAN manage your performing rights, sign up here.

Reproduction Rights

**NOTICE – To current SODRAC members - the SODRAC 2019 Annual General Meeting has been postposted. Review notice.

Music

The reproduction right gives rights holders of a song the sole right to authorize the reproduction of their work on various media, including CDs, records, and digital media. SOCAN administers these reproduction rights on behalf of the rights holders we represent by issuing licenses for the reproduction to such organizations as music labels and digital service providers.

Visual Arts and Crafts

The Canadian Copyright Act gives creators and rights holders of artistic works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, architectural works, engraving, photographs, the sole right to authorize their use, whether it be for their presentation at a public exhibition, for their reproduction on various analog or digital medias (cards, posters, books, derivative products, etc.), or for their public communication (websites, social medias, TV shows, films, etc.).

SOCAN administers all these copyrights on behalf of its visual arts and crafts members by issuing licenses for the use of their works.

To learn more about rights of use of artistic works, visit our Reproduction Rights Services page.

Publishing: Music publishing is the business of acquiring, administering, marketing and promoting musical compositions (i.e. “songs”). A good music publisher has the knowledge and contacts to promote a song or composition. Typically, a publisher enters into an agreement with the songwriter, whereby the songwriter assigns partial ownership and control of their songs to the publisher, in exchange for a percentage of the income derived from the exploitation of them. A reputable publisher never charges a fee for his/her service. To learn more, review SOCAN’s Publishing 101 in the Creators’ Toolbox.

Drake

Having expanded the lyrical range of rap into sensitive emotional territory, and then sonically into Caribbean and global flavours, SOCAN member, multiple Grammy winner and unofficial Toronto ambassador Drake has become one of the most commercially successful contemporary male pop stars in the world. With his album More Life, Drake earned a record 89.9 million streams on Apple Music and 61.3 million plays on Spotify in its first 24 hours. More Life was Drake's seventh consecutive No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, and earned 505,000 equivalent album sales in its first week. It allowed him to chart 24 songs simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100.