Live Music Venues

> Who Socan Works With > Music Users > Live Music Venues

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.

If I don't use Canadian-made music, do I still have to get a SOCAN license?

Yes. A SOCAN license gives you permission to use copyright-protected musical works of SOCAN members as well as members of affiliated international performing rights societies from around the world. Through agreements with international performing rights organizations, SOCAN issues licenses for virtually all music used in public by businesses in Canada. SOCAN then transfers the corresponding monies to the appropriate society, and vice versa.

Dean Brody

Dean Brody has earned 13 Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Awards, four SOCAN Awards for his songwriting, and two JUNOs, and he’s played on the JUNO Awards broadcast, too. His massive country radio hit “Bring Down the House” won Brody 2016 CCMA honours in the Single, Video, Songwriting and Top Selling Single categories. The longtime SOCAN member likes to tell cinematic stories that resonate both emotionally and musically, creating vivid real-life characters. Unlike lots of country music, which is co-written with professional songwriters, Brody writes alone.