Businesses

> Who Socan Works With > Music Users > Businesses

Silence isn’t golden, it’s awkward. Imagine a bar or restaurant without music; you’re left with the aggravating sounds of clinking tableware, clanking pots and pans, and dishes being swept into bins by wait staff. What about a retail store without music? Boring at best. It’s a fact: Music helps business succeed. It creates an overall positive customer experience, with the potential to keep customers in the store longer so that they can spend more, eat more, and drink more. The money paid to play that music, through SOCAN licenses, is used to compensate music creators, whose music is used to make your business better and more successful. Join SOCAN to start using music in your business, legally and ethically, and support songwriters, composers and music publishers that create and nurture it.

When is a performance a grand right versus a small right?

SOCAN represents the "small" performing rights in songs and compositions. When they’re used in theatrical shows and/or operas that combine the music with staging, dialogue, and costuming, it’s referred to as a "grand" right. Anne of Green Gables by Norman Campbell, and The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, are both productions which have "grand" rights. To obtain a grand right license, you must contact the publisher of the songs and compositions.

A Tribe Called Red

Producer/DJ trio A Tribe Called Red is a modern gateway into both urban and contemporary Indigenous culture, straddling hip-hop, powwow drums and vocals, and electronic production. Through a positive attitude and tireless work ethic, their message has expanded globally, with tours in Australia, Europe, Mexico and the U.S. In 2014, this trio of SOCAN members became the first Indigenous artists to win Breakthrough Group of the Year at the JUNO Awards. They followed up in 2017 with the Producer of the year JUNO Award. ATCR was also long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize in both 2012 and 2013, and short-listed in 2017.