The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 175,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects license fees through a music licensing program approved by the Copyright Board of Canada.[1]
History
SOCAN is a result of a merger that took place in 1990 between the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC) and the Performing Rights Organization of Canada (PROCAN).[1]
In 2013, Front Row Insurance Brokers Inc. initiated an online musical instrument insurance program for members of various Canadian music associations, including SOCAN.[2]
In May 2016, SOCAN acquired the Seattle-based company Medianet Digital for an undisclosed amount; the organization planned to leverage the company's software and database of rights metadata to assist in the calculation and distribution of royalties for works on digital music streaming services.[3] In July 2016, SOCAN acquired Audiam, a U.S. startup created by TuneCore founder Jeff Price that specializes in managing the distribution of royalties for songs used on digital services such as YouTube, using a database of song recordings and metadata for identification.[4][5]
In July 2019, SOCAN partnered with Re:Sound to launch Entandem, a single online portal to collect both copyright and neighbouring rights royalties.[6]