Music in the air at Manitoba Showcase 2018

Story by Howard Druckman | Tuesday October 23rd, 2018

SOCAN members Royal Wood and Andrew Collins are just a few of the musicians set to perform at the multi-disciplinary Manitoba Showcase 2018, to be held at the William Glesby Centre and the Portage and District Arts Centre in Portage la Prairie, MB, from Oct. 25-28, 2018.
The 18th annual edition of the conference will present five different musical performance showcases, featuring 15 acts from across Canada; daily music and arts seminars/workshops; and a three-day visual art exhibition. Manitoba Showcase 2018 aims to bring together communities, arts organizations, artists, and the public, all in celebration of artistic ability.

This year marks the launch of the Indigenous Special Project, created by the Manitoba Arts Network and funded by Canadian Heritage. The program provides financial assistance for musicians from five Indigenous communities to attend Manitoba Showcase 2018, not only as delegates, but also to evaluate fellow musicians who they might engage to play shows in their home communities.

For the music showcases lineup, click here. For a full conference schedule, click here. For tickets, click here.

Photo by Natalie Lapointe. SOCAN’s Geneviève Côté de la SOCAN and/et Amélie Hall

Amélie Hall wins SOCAN song award at Québec Gala Country

Story by Eric Parazelli | Wednesday October 24th, 2018

The Québec country music community gathered at the Mont Tremblant Casino on Oct. 20, 2018, for the sixth edition of the annual Gala Country, hosted by MC Gilles. A total of 13 awards were handed out during an evening celebrating the success of Canada’s Francophone country music artists in the past year.

Amélie Hall won the SOCAN-sponsored Song of the Year Award, for her song “Au bout du monde” (“To the Ends of the Earth”), published by Éditions Art illimité and Les Cent noms. The Acadian artist – who also won Best Album of Original Material of the Year, and shared the Songwriter of the Year honour with Danny Boudreau – received a $1,000 cash prize, and a stay at the SOCAN House in Nashville.

Among the evening’s other winners were:

  • Guylaine Tanguay (Covers Album and Female Artist of the Year);
  • Héra Ménard (Breakthrough Artist of the Year);
  • Véronique Labbé (RadioShow of the Year);
  • Patrick Norman (TV Show of the Year);
  • Alex & Caro (Band of the Year);
  • Laurie LeBlanc (Male Artist and Live Show of the Year);
  • Festival Western de St-Tite (Promoter of the Year); and
  • Yoan (People’s Choice Award).

The Gala Country provided the finale for the Célébration Culture Country, the inaugural edition of a gathering of industry stakeholders for three days of training sessions, showcases, and award presentations in Mont Tremblant. Geneviève Côté, SOCAN’s Chief of Québec Affairs, and David Charest, Account Manager, Member Services, presented a workshop on copyright hosted by Sébastien Charest, a copyright management consultant, and including representatives from ARTISTI and SOPROQ.

For more details about the 2018 Gala Country, visit the Culture Country website. (French only)

SOCAN launches Dataclef services to address music rights needs of international clients

Story by SOCAN | Monday October 22nd, 2018

Drawing on years of strategic planning, including the acquisitions of Audiam, MediaNet, Royalty Guru, and SODRAC, SOCAN today launched Dataclef, the new services arm of the organization.

Dataclef has created what is believed to be the most authoritative global music services platform ever built, empowering customers to thrive in the hyper-competitive modern music industry with revolutionary, fully-customizable service suites that simplify complex back-office and technology tasks. Relying on SOCAN’s well-established data management expertise, Datcalef has developed a unique, comprehensive, reliable music database from more than 200 world territories.

“Dataclef is a milestone for SOCAN and the music industry, on a global level,” said SOCAN Group CEO Eric Baptiste. “For the first time ever, organizations can go to one place for state-of-the-art license administration, worldwide reporting, and intelligent royalty tracking and delivery, improving their efficiency and bottom line to return superior results.”

With “Dataclef Suite,” collection organizations and rights holders can unlock maximum back-office return on investment with flexible and infinitely scalable multi-territory, multi-right licensing and royalty tools.

Other products and services will be announced in due course, as Dataclef solutions meet the high-scale needs of global music use across the entire digital supply chain. At every stage, Dataclef offers tools to increase efficiency, lower costs, manage liability, supercharge the user experience, and increase payment volume and accuracy to rights holders.

SOCAN’s services team, led by Dataclef Chief Operating Officer & Head of Sales Janice Scott, will operate at arm’s length from SOCAN’s core business teams, and on segregated systems, ensuring complete privacy and confidentiality for all clients.

As the global music services company of the future, Dataclef actively invests in forward-looking technologies that allow customers to benefit from more accurate, transparent data and payments, and leverage high-tech, intelligent business tools for music use. Dataclef is a bilingual organization (English and French), and will be expanding language support to Spanish and Arabic in the coming months.

“SOCAN has asserted a position in leading the global transformation of music rights,” said Scott. “Dataclef is the latest strategic move forward for the SOCAN Group, resulting from years of investment in technology development and acquisition, integration of complementary leading-edge companies, and, most importantly, the world’s best collective team of industry experts.”

SOCAN also announced that Dataclef is now providing back office services through the Dataclef Suite of products and services to facilitate rights management for IPRS – the Indian Performing Rights Society Limited, India’s only registered copyright society administering underlying works. Dataclef will administer mandates, process all types of music usage data, and work with IPRS to deliver royalty revenue to its members in the region. Dataclef’s powerful data management and cleansing systems will ensure maximum accuracy and timely payments.

“IPRS is excited to work with Dataclef to leverage their data and systems for maximized efficiency and royalty delivery to our members,” said Javed Akhtar, Chairman of IPRS. “Dataclef’s revolutionary systems and database are unlike anything we’ve had access to before. We anticipate many years of mutual success working with their impressive technology and team.”

SOCAN announced in May 2018 that the company had struck a services deal with the Dutch Caribbean performing rights organization, Ducapro, which will now be served by Dataclef.