Canadian Supreme Court rules on music

[tater1977]

Canadian Supreme Court rules on music

Decisions strike down claims for larger digital royalties

By Brendan Kelly

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111805 ... um=twitter

A series of decisions Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada had music publishers crying foul and those in favor of free access to the web applauding.
One decision knocks down the music biz's plan to collect extra royalties on music that is downloaded from the Internet. The top court in Canada ruled that the already-existing copyright agreements will apply and the music companies will not be able to collect any additional royalties specifically for downloading. If this had been accepted, the new fees could have lead to an increase in the price of buying songs online in Canada via services like iTunes.

The Supreme Court also ruled that those 30-second or more previews of songs on services like iTunes should not result in the online retailers paying royalties for these previews. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) had wanted to be able to collect royalties for these snippets of songs.

In yet another ruling, the Court stated that video-game publishers do not need to pay royalties for music in games that are downloaded online. The Court's argument is that the video-game publishers have already paid license fees to get access to the music.

But streaming music outlets like Rdio or pubcaster CBC's web music service should have to pay extra royalty fees. This could lead to increased prices for songs on these services.

On the other hand, the Court decided that distributors like cable operators will not have to pay out copyright fees for music that is downloaded on their services.

The cases were heard at the Supreme Court in December of last year.

[Don]

They're basically saying no more double dipping by the labels who are trying to collect twice for the same product.

[Abitaman]

Wanting to collect royalties on on 30 second snippets!?! Really, you want us to pay to listen to a 30 second preview of a song, so we can decide if we want to buy it? No wonder the music business sucks.
Next they will be charging us to look at the CD cover.