Funny – but how sad.
just as i was talking about a possible future podcasting liscence at mutek yesterday, the “Canadian Podcast Music Act” is now out:
SOCAN, the association which licences performance and communication of music in Canada, is proposing to charge non-profit podcasters $200 per month for the right to use commercial music in their podcasts. (By comparison, while American podcasters pay roughly CDN$30 per month, in most cases they must pay three different groups that fee.)
SOCAN’s tariff application is currently before the Canadian Copyright Board, but it is willing to negotiate individual deals with podcasters that might be less than the proposed tariff before a Board ruling comes down. So far, only one Canadian podcaster has approached SOCAN with such a proposal.
That’s a lot for individuals. I think a fairer law would be no fee for individuals or registered nonprofits (like CINQ-FM), university stations etc. For people who are “self-employed” and who use podcasts as part of their work / PR / advertising, the fees should be at least partly tax-deductible. Finally, there should be a regular SOCAN performance rights fee (same as radio) for truly commercial outfits and large organizations – like the CBC for instance!
And given that we already pay into that supposed “piracy compensation” fund everytime we buy blank media or iPods, technically they should be looking for money from them, not us…
i got to take the time to check that out – but of course i’m not gonna pay 200$ a month…
have to check what happens if i got an authorisation from labels/artists for the music i am playing, i guess this way i would be protected.
god damn, i never expected this liscence to be so damn expensive.. home podcasting is non profit, who the hell is gonna pay 200$ a month?