This article originally appeared in the May/June 2017 issue of Canadian Musician magazine.   

By Michael Raine

Two related themes have dominated music industry discussions and reporting over the last couple of years. From industry conferences at Canadian Music Week and South by Southwest to reports by the BBC and New York Times, there has been jubilation over revenue growth. Subscription streaming services like Spotify are credited with fueling a 5.9 per cent worldwide growth for the recorded music industry in 2016, which is the largest year-over-year increase since IFPI began tracking the market. In Canada, the growth was even more dramatic at 14.8 per cent thanks to streaming revenues more than doubling. On the flip side, though, is fretting and even outright anger over the paltry royalties the largest online service, YouTube, pays music rights holders.

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This article originally appeared in the May/June 2017 issue of Canadian Musician.

By Michael Raine

It seems like a source of great frustration at SOCAN that many songwriters are not bothering to collect their live performance royalties. While most songwriters know SOCAN collects and distributes their performance royalties for radio, TV/film, and online use, many seem to be ignoring their most likely source of SOCAN royalties: concerts. Maybe they don’t know this revenue stream is available to them, or maybe they don’t think it’s worth the hassle. Either way, money is being left on the table.

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A shortened version of this interview appeared in the January/February 2017 issue of Canadian Musician magazine. The full interview can also be listened to on the Dec. 7, 2016 episode of Canadian Musician Radio.

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The article originally appeared in the September/October 2016 issue of Canadian Musician magazine

By Michael Raine

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By Michael Raine

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2016 issue of Canadian Musician

Canadian content regulations worked. It’s just an accepted fact, even by many of its critics. CanCon succeeded in creating a music industry and infrastructure where none existed on Jan. 18, 1971, the day Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s government made it law to play Canadian music on the radio. To the extent that Canada now regularly produces nationally and internationally successful artists who are signed to Canadian record labels, record in Canadian studios, and work with Canadian managers, agents, promotors, publicists, and others while selling out Canadian venues and festivals, there is common consensus that CanCon has succeeded well beyond most expectations. But 45 years later, we have a Trudeau as prime minister and, with the exception of a few tweaks, the same CanCon system. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the cliché goes.

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