Toronto, August 16, 2011: A collective licensing agreement, representing more than 1500 major and independent record labels in Canada, has facilitated the launch of Galaxie Mobile by Stingray Digital, the first Canadian-owned commercial-free mobile streaming music service.

The agreement with Stingray is Canada’s first collective semi-interactive agreement and was negotiated by AVLA and SOPROQ on behalf of their members who represent the majority of recorded music in Canada, laying the groundwork for future agreements of its kind.

Music Canada, which represents Canada’s major record labels, spearheaded the negotiations, empowering AVLA to act on its behalf. Graham Henderson, President of Music Canada, points out that the major labels want to see more digital services operating in Canada as quickly as possible,

“We aggressively pursued this pioneering agreement because we understand how cumbersome our regulatory environment can be, and we want to help services better navigate it. We hope the Stingray agreement sets the stage for other online and mobile services, and signals to the marketplace that Canada is open for business.”

“For digital music services who are eager to enter the Canadian market, it is an enormous benefit to be able to negotiate with one or two organizations rather than 1500 plus rights holders,” says Victoria Shepherd, Executive Director of AVLA.
Stingray release.FINAL.pdf

You can also find Galaxie’s official release on marketwire.