Tariff 22

Tod Maffin has an interesting post and short audio interview that discusses the latest from SOCAN, Canada's music licensing and performing rights organization.

How about C$2400.00/year for the right to play anything from the SOCAN catalogue (which is basically anything that ASCAP and BMI have)? What? You're an amateur? You do podcasting for fun? You don't make money? Sorry... $2400.00/year is the MINIMUM proposed fee. During Tod's interview the General Counsel for SOCAN referenced the Proposal as "Tariff 22". This is the same document that I linked to a few months ago, so you might want to have a re-read of the SOCAN proposal.

How does pricing yourself out of the market help artists? As I announced last year, I won't be playing SOCAN licensed music if there either is no mechanism for royalty payment or if the royalties are set at high levels. There is faint hope however. SOCAN has announced that it will enter into "experimental" agreements with podcasters on an individual basis. I urge all SOCAN licensed artists to strongly lobby their Society so that fees for low and no profit podcasters are set at affordable and reasonable levels. That would serve to allow more podcasters to legally play SOCAN licensed music and increase exposure for SOCAN licensed artists -- especially new and struggling artists. Podcasters will be helping to introduce many new artists to their audiences, usually with audio files that are at 64 KBPS rates or lower. That's a quality level that would allow listenability but not encourage illicit copying. By the way, would SOCAN licensing insulate us from mechanical rights agencies banging on the door for more money?

What would be a fair rate? A minimum in the $200-$300 range with escalators based on "net" not gross revenues. I could never sign a deal with SOCAN that would be based on gross revenue since bandwidth costs could be a crippling factor if I ever got popular. Advertising on podcasts is not very common right now and certainly the medium has not yet provided a sustainable business model. We podcast because we like to do it. Demanding large sums of money from hobbiest podcasters means that they will either go to another source for music (ie: CC licensed, unlicensed, artist licensed) or just not play music at all.