Canadian rights group SOCAN signs transatlantic deal with France’s SACEM

PRESS RELEASE:

Sacem, the French authors’ rights society, and SOCAN, the Society of Composers Authors & Music Publishers ofCanada, announce today the signature of an agreement entrusting Sacem to administer and collect towards multi territorial DSPs inEuropethe performing rights of the more than 135,000 member creators and music publishers of the Canadian Society.

The deal is a first, as Sacem will be the first society inEuropeassigned to represent the digital rights of a North American music rights organization in pan-European licences, adding to the scale of the repertoire Sacem already represents with its 157,000 creators and publishers or through pre-existing mandates such as UMPI or Wixen Publishing. This agreement will have immediate benefits for SOCAN members as it will provide one unique point of collection and therefore transparency, velocity and efficiency in the management of their rights.

Sacem is a founder member of Armonia, the first European online music licensing hub, and the SOCAN/Sacem mandate will be handled through the Armonia platform. In that framework, SOCAN will join the Armonia community and directly benefit from the simplicity to negotiate with one voice with digital service providers and the processing services which provide automated data cleansing and enrichment, leading to more accurate identification of works and BI tools.

Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO of Sacem, comments:“We are very happywithSOCAN’sdecision, whichillustrates our commitment toimprove efficiencyin the digitalenvironmentfor fair and transparentonline revenues tosongwriters,composers and music publishers.TheSacem/SOCANagreementwill enhance the Armonia community, for the firsttime extendingbeyondEurope.“

Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN, comments:“This agreement means thatSOCAN’s more than 135,000 members will benefit greatly fromfurther improvedtracking of royalties in the burgeoning European music market. Thanks to this partnership, we look forward to bringingevenbetter returns forCanada’ssongwriters, composers and music publishers, allowing us to participateevenmore deeplyin the emerging global marketplace.“