Live music venues offer music fans a space to enjoy unique, real-time musical performances – concert experiences only made possible by songwriters and composers who create the music that those musicians perform. When you become Licensed To Play with SOCAN, you have the freedom to engage all the live music your business needs to be successful, while ensuring that the artists you hire to perform are compensated for their work as songwriters as well. Your license to play music demonstrates to artists, songwriters, music fans and peer businesses that your venue is using music legally and ethically, while supporting Canadian music creators. The license fees that live venues pay to SOCAN for the public performance of live music are used to compensate SOCAN-member songwriters, composers and music publishers that make up SOCAN.
What is a performing right?
A performing right is the right to perform musical works in public or communicate them to the public by telecommunication. SOCAN members have assigned this right to SOCAN to administer (i.e., license and distribute royalties) and enforce on their behalf. Tariffs for performing rights are set by the Copyright Board of Canada.
Full-throated singer-songwriter Serena Ryder has earned six JUNO Awards, and in 2014 she co-hosted the televised JUNO gala. SOCAN member Ryder was the first Canadian artist to top the CBC Radio 2 Top 20 chart, with “Stompa,” which also went Top 20 in Canada and the U.S., was featured in Grey's Anatomy, and sold platinum at home. Ryder has performed at the Luminato Festival, the Calgary Stampede, the NBA All Star game, and on The Tonight Show. She co-wrote and recorded “Together We Are One,” the official 2015 Pan Am Games theme, which also topped the aforementioned CBC chart. And she's won a Canadian Film Award and two SOCAN Pop/Rock Awards.