Audiences shifting from cable and TV to streaming video on-demand has had a huge effect on Canadian screen composers, most significantly by lowering the royalties paid for each view of their work. If you’re one of SOCAN’s #ComposersWhoScore dealing with this new reality, and want to understand how and why it’s happening, check out our “explainer” video below.
Click on the image to watch the video
SOCAN is making progress on this issue, along with efforts by our colleagues in the Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) and La Société professionnelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ). We’re currently advocating with the federal government to modify the Broadcasting Act so that it mandates Canadian Content quotas for streaming video-on-demand services, and the promotion and discoverability of it. We’re also pursuing the collection of streaming reproduction rights royalties from those services; copyright retention, and participation in publisher’s share of performing rights and reproduction rights, for screen composers; and incentivizing the use of Canadian screen composers in foreign productions which shoot in Canada.