It is true wave toys, SOCAN does not pay performance royalties for TV spots airing in Canada. Why? I was actually told that their philosophy for not paying for “jingles” or “commercials” is that SOCAN assumes a writer is getting paid very well up front for the sync license BECAUSE it is a commercial. Indeed that is 1995 thinking and not 2019 thinking where we live in a world of internet stores selling music for $5 a license.
Folks, I’ll be honest, the only reason to even be here in AJ is to “fish” for that big catch. Sure I’d love to see my unit volume of standard licenses net me $3000 to $7000 a month consistently, but that is not my reality. I am sending out 243 lines (tracks) hoping that one big fish comes along each year, finds my track, and installs it in a big ad campaign in the USA, or Germany, or perhaps England-France-Belgium-Holland territories. I assume APRA in Australia pays well too.
If you get lucky and land the big TV spot with your track on it, those PRO royalty checks just skyrocket. Even the goofy cheap looking infomercials pay. I just collected 2K from cheesy nutrisystem infomercials. I found the tv spot on Tunesat, then found it in numerator, then filed the claim at SESAC, and I was paid.
SOCAN is a problem, and it’s a real shame they don’t pay performance royalties for TV spots. But remember…ENVATO is a problem for us, because they refuse to mine the basic data we need for TV spots.