[Fmpro] o/s income SOCAN, Sean Goble

[LesHurdle]

If one cares to look at    http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/pc-ch/ 
pubs/Music_Publishing/english/societies.html  you will notice in 1998  
overseas income was $23M   one must presume based on what has become  
a known fact [in the USA] the publishers do NOT send money around the  
globe via the PRO's...... therefore SOCAN lost $23M that year re pub.  
money going direct.... if all deals were 50/50 and the account was  
anywhere close to being accurate.

o/s income paid for the overhead ;-)

How much did SOCAN lose last year from uncollected o/s income  $100M?

It would have been interesting to see which US PRO paid SOCAN the  
most and for what genre of music,...... SEAN, care to comment?

Best

Les


On Jul 6, 2008, at 9:20 AM, David Tkaczuk wrote:

> Thanks for your reply Sean.
>
> Yes, some people are suggesting that you register/join as many PRO's
> as possible, which is not possible with SOCAN.
>
> On the subject of re-titling, Pump Audio is an example of a music  
> library
> that re-title's your works with their own title scheme. The person  
> I talked
> to said that they only will do this if your work is going to be  
> used, but, I
> am not sure about this. As a composer, you would like to be sure that
> everything is as is should be and that nothing is slipping through  
> the cracks.
>
> Dave
> D&D Music
>
> Sean Goble wrote:
>
>> Wow.  Okay, so here's answers where I have answers.  Please keep  
>> in mind
>> this is strictly from a Canadian/SOCAN perspective.
>>
>> Dave:
>> The reason you've had so many differing responses is because there  
>> is no
>> complete answer to protecting your copyright.  Since you have to  
>> protect
>> your copyright in civil court, you should cover as many bases as  
>> possible.
>>  The way to look at it is you are creating a paper trail so that  
>> should
>> your copyright ever come into question, you have documents to  
>> prove your
>> claim.  The first thing I tell any of our members is if you  
>> cowrite, or
>> someone has an interest in your song, GET THE SPLITS IN WRITING AND
>> SIGNED.  Composing is an organic process, and this will quite  
>> often feel
>> awkward but anything you can get down where the splits are decided is
>> incredibly useful down the road.
>> Copyright: There is the poor man's copyright, which is admittedly  
>> not fool
>> proof, but it's a start.  This is the practice of sending a copy  
>> of your
>> work by registered mail to yourself and not opening it.  This  
>> gives you a
>> date that the work was completed but isn't strong enough to stand  
>> on its
>> own.  Register your work with your PRO.  As far as the actual act of
>> copyrighting your song, I normally recommend that people use the US
>> Copyright system instead of the Canadian as the Canadian system  
>> only uses
>> title and writers (so if I write a song called "I Love You" I get  
>> thrown
>> in with all the other songs of the same name) whereas the US  
>> system takes
>> a copy of your work.  US Copyrights can be submitted in Canadian  
>> court.
>>
>> Registering your work: Some people submit only the songs that see the
>> light of day, some people submit every note they've ever written.   
>> But I
>> strongly suggest you use our webpage to submit your works (if  
>> you're a
>> SOCAN member) as this cuts down on paper and there is no question  
>> whether
>> it has been processed or not.  You can monitor it from the page.   
>> SOCAN
>> uses a 100% model so splits are 50% writer share and 50% publisher.
>>
>> Retitling: I think I need some clarification.  Do you mean a) 
>> changing the
>> names of work b) giving/selling your work to someone else or c)  
>> within a
>> publishing context such as labelling an entire acquired library?
>>
>> Mark:
>>
>> Publishers: I should have been clearer on this in my first post.   
>> The way
>> publishers register with multiple PROs internationally is by creating
>> business entities in other countries.  For instance in N. America  
>> there
>> could be Large Publisher Conglomerate in the US collected by BMI  
>> and then
>> in Canada there would be LPC Canada that has a SOCAN account  
>> (normally
>> that would be a SOCAN "B" account but I'll explain that a little  
>> more in a
>> minute) that collects in Canada.  As we don't want to step on  
>> BMI's toes
>> in this case, SOCAN normally requires some type of office up here  
>> in order
>> for them to be a member of SOCAN.  In effect it's like having a
>> subpublisher just under the same name.  Technically, these should be
>> limited deals, but because of the nature of the beast, we accept that
>> publishers, the larger ones at least, will have subpublishers/country
>> specific versions of the company and we try to accommodate them,  
>> even if
>> it doesn't technically fall into "membership" as it should be.
>>
>> Splitting your catalogue between US PROS:  When you become a SOCAN  
>> member
>> you choose who you would like to collect on your behalf in the  
>> US.  These
>> are SOCAN A, B and S accounts.  You, as a writer, can get split  
>> accounts
>> where part of your account is an A and part is a B if necessary  
>> (say if
>> you were published by one ASCAP publisher and one BMI publisher), but
>> normally we encourage you to pick one to avoid money getting  
>> caught up as
>> one PRO collects on your behalf for another PRO's song, it gets  
>> sent to us
>> and then we have to send it back so that it can go through the right
>> society.   You can however switch who is representing you by  
>> requesting it
>> from SOCAN.
>>
>> Assignment Letter:  We have what is called an "Authorized  
>> Representative"
>> form that allows our members to give partial or complete control  
>> of their
>> account to a third party (while retaining their own control of  
>> course).
>> However, you need to be a member of SOCAN in order to do this.  We  
>> do not
>> pay out to non-members.  If you are an American writer, who is  
>> represented
>> by an American PRO, all claims, requests and questions need to be  
>> directed
>> through your PRO.  If you call SOCAN, we'll happily field your  
>> call but we
>> can't do anything about cue sheets, missed broadcasts, works or  
>> finances.
>> All directions have to come through your PRO.
>>
>> Les:
>>
>> IMRO: Good catch, I read that in a post after I had written my  
>> email and
>> to be honest, I didn't know.
>>
>> Operating Costs: Our operating costs come from the "Radio Pool".   
>> This
>> pool, while primarily containing the license fees from our customers
>> (public performance, broadcast), also contains money from various  
>> tariffs
>> that we are unable to monitor.  We call it the "radio pool"  
>> because the
>> performance data from radio is what is used to distribute the  
>> money in
>> this pool.  But no foreign money goes into this pool, it is paid  
>> directly
>> to our members.
>>
>> Watermarking: I'm really not privy to high level decisions such as  
>> reasons
>> for watermarking or not watermarking.  Some of the technologies  
>> that were
>> looked at came up a little short as they did not cross over when  
>> copied
>> etc.  No doubt that has changed and we do keep on top of this  
>> stuff so it
>> may happen yet, but right now we find fingerprinting to be a better
>> approach on radio as we don't need to rely on the file itself for  
>> ID, we
>> can do it from our end and I've heard rumoured that a similar  
>> technology
>> is being looked at for TV/Internet.  Our company line however is  
>> that we
>> are still looking at the technology and may utilize it in the future.
>>
>> Broadcaster Contract:  This isn't my end of the company, I am a  
>> member
>> account executive which means I work with membership and all  
>> concerns of
>> our members.  However, even if I were in licensing I don't think  
>> we'd be
>> allowed to give out any details on our contracts.  Sorry.  :-(
>>
>> Multiple PROs: We may be dealing with an issue of semantics here.
>> Membership, at least around here, is generally referring to  
>> worldwide and
>> I assumed (probably erroneously) that's what you meant.   Part of the
>> process of becoming a member is that we do a back check on an
>> international database (IPI) to make sure you are not a member of  
>> another
>> society.  If you are, we ask them to release you.  This is maintained
>> universally (or is supposed to be) and is not unique to SOCAN.   
>> However,
>> as I did come in part way through this conversation (I've been on the
>> board for a while but I don't always get the opportunity to read  
>> every
>> digest), it occurs to me that you may be discussing limited territory
>> deals which do happen.
>>         A limited deal is where you assign a PRO for a specific  
>> territory.
>>  I have seen this done with one or maybe at the most two  
>> territories.  So
>> if you were a SOCAN member and a Canadian citizen living in  
>> Manhattan you
>> could have SOCAN for worldwide ex. US and then have an American PRO
>> collect in the States.
>>         Here's the problems we've experienced when this starts to  
>> expand
>> beyond one (I'm playing antagonist because it looks as if it has  
>> already
>> been advocated if we're talking limited here).  Firstly, for each  
>> PRO you
>> join, you need to qualify and you need to be released by your  
>> current PRO
>> for that territory.  While some PROs have few membership  
>> qualifications
>> and will happily sign a foreign based member, most PROs, unless  
>> it's a
>> special case, restrict membership to people residing in their  
>> territory.
>> This allows the smaller guys to exist and work with, instead of  
>> against,
>> the big societies.   Second is taxes.  You're getting taxed in a  
>> multiple
>> of different territories.  If your accounting is set-up for this,  
>> then it
>> isn't a problem.  A third is you are gumming up the works a bit as  
>> limited
>> territories are rare (and normally not recommended) and I'm sure  
>> you have
>> experience with any large company trying to deal with something  
>> that it
>> doesn't handle every day.  The last real issue is your catalogue.  If
>> you're working with limited territories, you need to supply your  
>> entire
>> catalogue to the societies working in limited territory deals.  Your
>> society (whoever is representing you worldwide ex. limited  
>> territories) is
>> not going to submit your catalogue to a limited territory country  
>> because
>> it isn't claiming on your behalf in that territory.  And the limited
>> territory PRO is not going to use a foreign PRO's list even if it  
>> were
>> submitted.  So you will need to maintain your catalogue in multiple
>> databases.
>>         These issues are the biggies and if you don't see anything  
>> that's
>> a deal breaker, then limited territories may be a good option for  
>> some
>> people though we've found that the majority members who try it  
>> tend to
>> come back to a worldwide.
>>
>> Commercials: You're right, SOCAN does not pay or collect  for  
>> commercials,
>> 60 secs or less, aired in Canada. There's no real answer here.  
>> Commercials
>> are simply something we don't pay, the same way that we don't pay for
>> skating rink performances.  All PROs have different things they  
>> pay and
>> don't pay, for instance we pay for all concerts while US PROs only  
>> pay the
>> top 200.  It's a matter of policies and resources and while surely  
>> here,
>> in a board full of A/V composers, commercials are a large focus, with
>> other members it would be much preferred that we pay a different  
>> area as
>> theoretically a composer of a work in a commercial has already  
>> been paid
>> while a person having their song covered on stage has not.  It's a
>> difficult line to walk and it does get revisited from time to time  
>> but
>> that's the best I can give you at the moment.
>>
>> Geesh Les, throw me a softball or two next time would you?  :-)
>>
>> Okay, I think that's it.  Hope I didn't put everyone to sleep.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Sean
>>
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