The Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) and SOCAN will host the Cue-Sheet-Palooza Hackathon, to be held in-person on Apr. 9-10, 2022, in Toronto. This one-of-a-kind event will provide software developers and designers, along with music and tech-industry mentors, the opportunity to showcase their creativity to not only re-think, but re-define the cue sheet process for screen composers and music publishers.
Partnering with the SCGC and SOCAN on the Hackathon are the Canada Council for the Arts, the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC), the Société professionelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ), the SOCAN Foundation, Music Publishers Canada (MPC), the Canadian Guild of Music Supervisors (CGMS), and Devpost.
Cue sheets are lengthy documents that identify all of the music and its stakeholders in a particular screen production, in order to accurately distribute royalties; the process of using them has proven tedious and outdated. The Cue-Sheet-Palooza Hackathon will offer an opportunity to revolutionize how royalties are paid to music stakeholders for screen productions.
John Welsman, President of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada, said, “Cue Sheets are the means by which music creators register their musical works in audio-visual productions. They contain all of the information necessary to track and pay out performing and reproduction rights royalties to composers, songwriters, and music publishers. These royalties provide financial stability to the often unpredictable livelihoods of music creators, allowing them to keep doing what they do so well – creating music!”
“We’re only just beginning to realize the potential of technology to allow music creators to receive what they’ve rightfully earned from their work,” said SOCAN CEO Jennifer Brown. “This hackathon is an opportunity to bring speed and accuracy to what traditionally has been an extremely complicated process, and SOCAN is excited to see the results.”
Developer teams will use sponsor APIs (application program interfaces) or SDKs (software development toolkits) and other technology, to create a more efficient, user-friendly payment process for music professionals. Musiio, AI for the music industry, and Jaxsta, the world’s largest public-facing, dedicated database of official music credits, are the initial technology partners. SOCAN will also introduce its much-anticipated Cue Sheet API, billed as a game-changer for music creators and stakeholders.
The event will be judged by a roster of industry veterans, including award-winning screen composer Amin Bhatia; VP of CONNECT Music Licensing Catherine Jones; Executive Director of the SOCAN Foundation Charlie Wall-Andrews; Senior Manager of Broadcast Operations (Audio) at BellMedia Michael Nunan; and Mohamed Moutadayne, CTO & SVP of Product & Services at LyricFind.
Participants of the Hackathon will have the opportunity to work with experienced industry mentors, including technologist/media and entertainment industry professional Mathew Sherman, a 29-year veteran of BellMedia; composer/software developer Toby Sherriff; University of Toronto Adjunct Professor, Music Technology & Digital Media Program, Catherine Moore; Songwriter/Producer and founder of MDIIO, Justin Gray; Chief Technology Officer, Slaight Music, Barnaby Marshall; VP Strategy and Operations at MDIIO, Ryan Maule; and Tobi Akinwumi, Manager – Product Management, Member Digital Products at SOCAN.
Teams will compete for cash prizes, and the winning team will also receive registrations for Canadian Music Week 2022, which is happening in April of 2022. Interested hackers can sign up to participate here. Want to sponsor or partner on Cue-Sheet-Palooza? contact us.