MediaNet is the creator of powerful music and metadata delivery technologies that work with streaming services, download providers, media search, and other media discovery tools to provide an exhaustive catalog of music, while ensuring that creators and music publishers, including artists and all relevant rights owners, are properly compensated for their work.

The MediaNet acquisition will have immediate benefits for SOCAN members’ digital performances, as the potential for increased matching on radio, TV and in areas such as nightclub performances is substantial. With MediaNet, SOCAN will be able to identify digital performances from around the world in real-time, with access to granular performance data to make better decisions, identify trends and increase revenue for members. This comes with a level of data accuracy and transparency that few, if any, music rights organizations in the world can provide.

With more than 51 million sound recordings in its database, each containing a unique audio identifier, MediaNet will provide SOCAN with authoritative information pertaining to master rights (sound recordings), and will augment already strong matching capabilities for all kinds of performances and reproductions of music on radio, digital, live, satellite, film and TV and other delivery of music to public audiences.

In keeping with SOCAN’s vision to lead the global transformation of music rights, the acquisition and integration of MediaNet’s technology will make SOCAN the leader in accurate matching of music data, one of the most significant challenges facing the digital music ecosystem worldwide. The benefit of robust, accurate matching of repertoire to rights-owners is significant to SOCAN’s existing and future members, and will especially increase revenue streams for all whose music is played on digital platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud and other services relying on uploads.

“The music ecosystem is in need of data and accuracy and, with MediaNet, SOCAN is the first major music collective to meet this need,” said SOCAN CEO Eric Baptiste. “The expanded family of MediaNet and SOCAN creates an unbeatable combination that will help drive proper compensation for SOCAN’s membership base of songwriters, composers and music publishers and potentially for all parties involved in the music value chain.”

For SOCAN’s more than 135,000 members the acquisition of MediaNet brings immediate dramatic improvement in digital match-rates and the speed of distribution of digital royalties. For digital service providers this means a new dimension of accuracy for matching musical works with rich ownership data.

MediaNet will continue to operate under its current name, with all of its 34 employees continuing at the organization’s Seattle offices. MediaNet CEO Frank Johnson and the company’s leadership team will remain in place.

“SOCAN is a leader in ushering the transition from physical to digital through a commitment to data and artist advocacy,” said MediaNet CEO Frank Johnson. “We are thrilled to join the SOCAN family and realize our shared goal of pioneering high-scale technology solutions that ensure fair and accurate royalty administration.”

The acquisition was completed in May 2024, the terms of which are undisclosed.