SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, today commended the Supreme Court of Canada for upholding the rights of the more than 110,000 creators and publishers who SOCAN represents in Canada in decisions related to the use of music on the Internet by large broadcasting corporations and entertainment software companies.
SOCAN also expressed disappointment that the court chose not to uphold the rights of music creators and publishers in all of the appeals decisions.
"The Supreme Court of Canada has reconfirmed the online rights of music creators and publishers, and we believe that that the right final decision has been made in the case of Internet streaming," said Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN. "We are, however, disappointed that the court chose not to uphold the rights of our members in all of its decisions. We will continue to fight for the legal rights of our members to be compensated fairly for their work."
Composers, lyricists, songwriters, and publishers earn much of their living through royalties collected by music copyright collectives, such as SOCAN, in the form of licence fees paid by businesses in Canada that use music as part of their operations.
The Supreme Court addressed the use of music online in the form of downloads and musical previews, as well as the use of music in online games. The Court confirmed, at least in one of these decisions, that composers', lyricists', songwriters', and publishers' rights apply online as well.