Today, the C.D. Howe Institute has released a new report that finds that Canada’s current copyright framework for recorded music is shortchanging artists. Analysis by the report author Marcel Boyer determines that the competitive value of recorded music is approximately 2.5 times higher than the current level of copyright payments.
“In today’s digital age, copyright regimes everywhere face common piracy threats along with wide dissemination,” said Boyer in a release. “Meanwhile, rights holders and users contest the market value of copyrights in public forums, legislatures and in the courts. The root of those conflicts is the difficulty of properly valuing the intellectual property rights of authors, composers, performers and makers.”
Timelines and deadlines for the four streams of the Ontario Music Fund are as follows. The OMDC noted that key dates for each stream vary, and all dates may be subject to change.
OMF Music Company Development Stream
Guidelines and Application Launch: February 26, 2015
Deadline: May 7, 2015
Activity Period: July 1, 2015 – July 31, 2016
OMF Live Music Stream
Guidelines and Application Launch: March 10, 2015
Deadline: May 11, 2015
Activity Period: July 1, 2015 – August 31, 2016
OMF Music Futures Stream
Guidelines and Application Launch: February 26, 2015
Deadline: May 14, 2015
Activity Period: May 1, 2015 – August 31, 2016
OMF Music Industry Development Stream
Guidelines and Application Launch: March 16, 2015
Rolling Deadline: Applications accepted from launch through October 29, 2015
Activity Period: April 1, 2015 – May 31, 2016
The OMDC also announced that information and webinar sessions on the OMF will be held in March and April 2015. Details and registration will be posted on the OMDC website in the coming weeks.
Congratulations to the 2015 JUNO Award nominees, which were announced by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) yesterday at a press conference at The Danforth Music Hall in Toronto. The full list of nominees is now available on the JUNOs website. Of the 179 nominees across 41 categories, 89 are receiving the first nomination of their career. Music from the nominees is available in the new JUNO Room on iTunes.
Music Canada is proud to return as the sponsor of the Album of the Year Award category. Nominees in that category include:
Where I Belong Bobby Bazini Universal
Wild Life Hedley Universal
Popular Problems Leonard Cohen Columbia*Sony
No Fixed Address Nickelback Nickelback II Productions*Universal
The awards will be presented during JUNO Week in Hamilton, which runs March 9th-15th, culminating with the JUNO Awards Broadcast, which will air on CTV from Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre. Tickets for the JUNO Awards 2015 are on sale now at Ticketmaster. The JUNOs also announced that Hamilton’s own Arkells will perform at the Broadcast show, joining previously announced performers Hedley, Kiesza, MAGIC!, and Shawn Mendes. A number of events for JUNO Week have also been announced, including JUNO Cup, JUNO Fan Fare, JUNOfest, and JUNO Songwriters’ Circle. Additionally, the JUNO Photography Exhibition and the JUNO Tour of Canadian Art are on now through late April at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
Hamilton is “is positively amped about hosting the 2015 JUNOS,” said Tim Potocic, Chair of the 2015 JUNO Awards Host Committee earlier this year. This will be the first time since 2001 that Hamilton has hosted the awards, which also hosted the awards in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1999. As Potocic notes, the City of Hamilton has embraced the music sector as an economic driver, with the creation of Hamilton Music Strategy and the establishment of the City’s Music and Film Office late last year.
It is estimated that the JUNOs will generate an economic impact of more than $10 million for Hamilton. Each city that has hosted the JUNO Awards has seen an economic impact of more than $10 million, said CARAS President & CEO Allan Reid at a Canadian Heritage Committee earlier this year, with more than $100 million in economic impact seen across Canada over the past 10 years.
Music Canada is proud to return as the sponsor of the Album of the Year Award at the 44th Annual JUNO Awards.
“One constant among all the changes in the ways that we listen to music is the concept of an album, which remains the definitive statement of an artist’s creativity. An album is more than a collection of songs; it establishes an artist’s commercial and public presence. The album is the core of all of the activities that allow a performing artist to make a living, underpinning touring, merchandise, and licensing,” said Graham Henderson, President of Music Canada. “A successful album has a ripple effect that sets many layers of employment into motion, creating momentum for a tour or video shoots, which provide activity for agents and promoters, venue operators and sound technicians, and more.”
At Music Canada we are proud to work alongside the record labels who invest in great Canadian artists like those nominated for the Album of the Year Award, who support artists’ creative development, and who help bring their talents to the world.
The Album of the Year Award will be presented at The 2015 JUNO Awards Broadcast on CTV at Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre on Sunday, March 15th.
Republic Live, producers of the Boots and Hearts country music festival, have announced a new annual music and arts camping festival, taking place at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, ON, from July 24th to 26th, 2015. The festival is a collaboration between the Peterborough, ON-based Republic Live, and US promoter AC Entertainment, co-founders of the Bonnaroo Music Festival.
The festival’s name and lineup are still to be announced, but the release promises “an extraordinary lineup featuring some of the leading artists in music, the best selection of indie bands and local heroes.” The festival will include four stages, art installations, a late night forest, an on-site farmers market, and will be licensed across the venue’s 700 acre grounds.
“We’ve felt so fortunate to see Boots and Hearts grow in 3 short years to become Canada’s largest camping and country music festival, with the same aspirations for this new music and arts festival we’re excited to share more details including the name, brand and of course the line up, in the coming weeks,” Shannon McNevan, Executive Director, Republic Live said in the release. “We can see with the growth of Boots and Hearts that Canada, and in particular Ontario, has the appetite to sustain camping and music festivals and we believe that the location, being so close to the GTA, is the perfect site for a music and arts camping festival.”
The release notes that the new festival fits well within the Ontario Live Music Strategy, which was announced in January 2013 to strengthen Ontario’s position as a global leader for live music. Republic Live estimates, based on the Ontario TREIM model, that the new festival could generate approximately $13.6 million in economic impact for the province in its first year, with the opportunity to generate as much as $40 million.
In 2014, the Boots and Hearts festival generated approximately $17 million in economic impact in the Durham Region. The festival has been so successful that Republic Live is moving the 2015 Boots and Hearts festival to Burl’s Creek Event Ground, which will allow for expanded capacity and camping grounds. Boots and Hearts’ 2015 festival will take place August 6th to 9th, and will feature performances by Brad Paisley, Florida Georgia Line, Dallas Smith, Chad Brownlee, with more to be announced.
The City of Hamilton moved forward with a major step in the Hamilton Music Strategy this week, as the City’s Music and Film Office moved into their new space in the Lister Building (28 James St. N). The office provides resources and information to members of Hamilton’s music and film industry.
Hamilton’s Music Strategy celebrates “all things music” in Hamilton, and “guides the activities of its partners to create and nurture an environment where music and the music industry flourishes, grows and prospers,” as per the Mission Statement. The goals of the strategy are to strengthen the local music industry, grow audiences and appreciation of music, increase access to music experiences, and cultivate music creation and talent.
The creation of the office was an action item outlined in the strategy document as well as the item approved by Council last January, which stated “the purpose of the Music Office is to be the single point of contact for the music sector interface with City Hall. Staff is to lead public/private efforts to generate new economic activity in the City, ensure music alliances deliver results, and identify ways that music can be leveraged for other sectors such as tourism, investment attraction and business retention.”
Jacqueline Norton, Business Development Consultant, Creative Industries at the City of Hamilton spoke with CHCH about the new location and goals for the office with CHCH. “Over the next year hopefully we’ll be setting out some details of what exactly are we going to accomplish and we’re going to start hitting the low hanging fruit.”
2015 is set to be an extra busy year for music in the Hammer, which will host the 2015 JUNO Awards and JUNO Week, which is estimated to have an economic impact of $11.9 million in Hamilton.
“This will really benefit a lot of hotels, restaurants, and major venues, so this will spread across the community – but it is something that our residents and visitors alike can take part in,” said Sue Monach of Tourism Hamilton in a video last March.
“It’s massive economic impact, it’s great for the local music community, and now that we’ve just opened our Hamilton music office, the timing is perfect to sort of bring together all of the elements of what’s going on in culture on the music side in Hamilton, so it’s a perfect fit,” said Tim Potovic, Chair of the 2015 JUNO Awards Host Committee.
Yesterday, Music Canada President Graham Henderson appeared on CBC Metro Morning to discuss the recent shutdown of The Pirate Bay, and how to restore respect for creators’ work.
When asked why the Pirate Bay remained in operation despite legal threats for so long, Henderson replied, “I think it’s one of the realities of our digital environment, that if you are persistent, and you want to operate outside the law, there are ways to do it. And very clearly that’s what the Pirate Bay has been doing for these past years. But it also reflects an almost insatiable demand for music.”
“The site was popular, because music is popular,” said Henderson. “What we’ve seen for the past 14 years is an entirely avoidable, inappropriate loss of value for creators. I think it’s fair to say that musicians and creators in general today are worse off than they were in 1999 – was that the plan? I don’t think that was the plan, and in fact, I would suggest to you that there was an implicit promise that came from the intermediaries, that came from everybody, that creators were going to be okay – and they’re not, and I think we can thank The Pirate Bay for a lot of the reason for that.”
Host Matt Galloway asked why, with the emergence of licensed digital music options, “what still drives some people to a site like the Pirate Bay?”
“It’s not even a really good experience, we have to remember that,” said Henderson. “It’s free, but the contrast would be a service like Spotify, which is $10 a month. I think people are gradually migrating to legal – I think once they experience legal services, for example, there was a brand new high-def service named TIDAL launched here last week – once they experience these services, they realize there is a phenomenal customer experience there.”
“Intellectually, people understand that illegally downloading is like stealing,” said Galloway. “And yet they still do it – how do you convince them to make that intellectual leap, that downloading is no different than going and taking something from a store?”
“I think that a lot of people have lost the connection with the recording artist; I think we have to restore that respect for the creative process, restore the respect for the creator,” said Henderson. “I also think we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room: creators are not doing as well as it was suggested they’re doing – in fact, they’re worse off. I think when people realize that the direct consequence of their actions is to impoverish the musicians they love, then maybe we’ll move in the right direction.”
“Do you think people care if Taylor Swift doesn’t get more money because they are getting it for free?”, asked Galloway.
“I don’t think everyone does, because I think people can be quite selfish in terms of the way they behave – but it’s not about Taylor Swift – that’s an easy thing to say, but what’s happening is we’re seeing an unprecedented shift of wealth,” said Henderson. “It’s moving from creators to the hands of billionaires and trillionaires – that’s where it’s going, into the hands of intermediaries. Lost in this – Taylor Swift is doing fine. It’s like the 1% problem – more and more wealth, concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and the middle-class in the music environment: wiped out. We have more hobbyists than professional musicians. And I think it’s been very convenient in the past to think, ‘I’m doing this because rich artists are fine anyway.’”
Canadian audiophiles have a new option to get their fix of high-fidelity music: TIDAL, which offers streaming music in lossless quality (FLAC/ALAC 44.1kHZ / 16 bit – 1441 hbps), announced the launch of their service in Canada yesterday.
The service features a library of more than 25 million licensed songs, including catalogs of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, as well as a host of independent labels, plus more than 75,000 music videos.
TIDAL features editorial content from music journalists, with articles, interviews, and playlists posted regularly at http://read.tidalhifi.com/.
“We are big fans of Canadian music, and look forward to working even more closely with Canadian artists and the local music scene,” says TIDAL’s Head of Editorial Sveinung Rindal in a release. “Through collaborations with local magazines and music journalists we plan to showcase the best in Canadian music, such as our recently added Loscil and Ryan Hemsworth recommendations and the new EP from one of Canada’s iconic punk rock figures, Art Bergmann.”
To celebrate their expansion, TIDAL has created an all-Canadian playlist featuring a mix of “big guns” like Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, as well as “indie darlings” such as Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and The New Pornographers.
The service is available now for a monthly subscription of $19.99, and is offering an introductory one-week free trial at for new customers.
Today, the National Music Centre (NMC) released Fertile Ground: Alberta Music Cities Initiative, a new report on Alberta’s music sector that outlines the economic benefits of a strong provincial music industry. The report identifies the unique opportunity for the development of Alberta’s music sector and provides four key recommendations for further growth.
The NMC commissioned Music Canada to author the report, which was supported by funding from the Scotlyn Foundation. In a release, NMC President and CEO Andrew Mosker said the report was inspired by Music Canada’s success in demonstrating the value of provincial and municipal live music strategies in Ontario.
“Graham and Paul Lessard with the Scotlyn Foundation approached us, eager to do something meaningful for Alberta’s music industry,” said Mosker. “I was very aware of the incredible work Music Canada had done in Ontario, and wondered if the same strategic business approach could work in Alberta.”
The report notes that Alberta is already home to a number of key music assets, and that a strategic initiative to develop the music cluster would create the opportunity for diversification of the Alberta economy.
“This report is about breaking music out of the cultural box, and into the general consciousness of Alberta’s economic leaders, demonstrating its value and ability to attract and retain creative talent, support tourism and inspire investment across a variety of economic sectors, thereby supporting efforts to diversify Alberta’s economy,” said Amy Terrill, VP of Public Affairs at Music Canada and author of the Fertile Ground report.
Music Canada and NMC consulted a variety of stakeholders across Alberta in researching the report, including Alberta Music, tourism agencies, arts and culture organizations, and Alberta Chambers of Commerce. The report found that a strategic music initiative would “closely align with the priorities of numerous agencies and commissions involved in economic development, tourism and related fields, suggesting that it will be well received throughout the province.”
The four key recommendations to government and other sector partners are:
Develop a comprehensive understating of the economic profile of Alberta’s music cluster, with regional breakouts for Calgary and Edmonton as well as other smaller cities as appropriate.
Position music as a key economic sector, a vehicle for the diversification of Alberta’s economy, and a tool that municipalities can use to stimulate economic growth, increase investment, retain youth, and drive tourism.
Develop and implement a strategic plan to build the business capacity of the music industry in Alberta.
Develop and implement a live music strategy for Alberta to improve the live music product offering in Alberta and generate increased music tourism.
To view the full Fertile Ground report, visit the NMC site at www.nmc.ca/amci.
Today, the IFPI, in association with WIN, have released Investing in Music, a new report that highlights the investment that record companies make in artists and repertoire (A&R) and marketing.
The report shows that record companies remain the primary investors in artists, investing 27% of their revenues in A&R and marketing, an increase from 26% in 2011. The report estimates that record companies worldwide have invested more than US$20 Billion in A&R and marketing over the past five years.
“Investing in Music highlights the multi-billion dollar investment in artists made every year by major and independent record labels. It is estimated that the investment in A&R and marketing over the last five years has totalled more than US$20 billion”, said Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI. “That is an impressive measure of the qualities that define the music industry, and which give it its unique value.”
The report also reveals that more than 7,500 artists were signed to major labels’ rosters in 2013, with tens of thousands more signed to independent labels. One in five artists on a labels’ roster is a new signing, which illustrates that fresh talent is the lifeblood of the industry, says the IFPI.
“Most artists who want to make a career from their music still seek a recording deal,” said Alison Wenham, chair of WIN. “They want to be introduced to the best producers, sound engineers and session musicians in the business. They need financial support and professional help to develop marketing and promotional campaigns.”
The report shows that record companies invest a greater proportion of their global revenues into A&R than most other sectors do into research and development (R&D). The music industry’s investment of 16% of revenues in A&R exceeds the R&D investment of industries such as the pharmaceutical and biology (14.4%), software and computing (9.9%), or technology hardware and equipment (7.9%) sectors.
The report includes data from record companies around the world, and features case studies on Ed Sheeran, 5 Seconds of Summer, Lorde, MKTO, Negramaro, Nico & Vinz, Pharrell Williams, and Wei Li-An.
The full report is now available via the IFPI website.
Music Canada