I had a weird experience with one of my customers from Canada.
They bought broadcast license to use my music on TV, we got in touch and I politely reminded to fill cue sheets because my music is registered with BMI.
The first response was:
"Ok - so cue sheets - Canadian broadcasters do not pay royalties to SOCAN/BMI/ASCAP on commercials - so there is no reason do do cue sheets. I don’t mind filling it out if you still want it filled out."
So I contacted SOCAN, and I got this response:
"In regards to it, your Canadian customer that has acquired permission from yourself (the rights holder/composer/author) for the use of your composition in their production that is broadcast in Canada is required to submit its use to SOCAN, so that SOCAN can pay royalties to you as foreign income directly to your PRO BMI."
I’ve contacted my customer again and told them what the official response from SOCAN was.
They also contacted the same person in SOCAN regarding this, and told me this was his response:
"I was under the impression that the submission was not for a commercial, which SOCAN doesn’t license.
That being the case, the submission is not required if your production and the usage of the work was for a TV commercial aired in Canada."
Canadian authors, is this true?
Thanks