The royalty collection agency in Canada, equivalent to the Harry Fox
Agency in the US, is Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd.
(CMRRA).  The royalty they charge for mechanical licensing is "6.6 cents
[CDN] per song per copy sold or otherwise distributed, where the playing
time is five minutes or less."

If we include 18 songs on the CD that our vintage music orchestra is
recording, that's roughly $1.19 [CDN] per CD.  (All the tunes were
written between 1922 and 1931.) Our total manufacturing and production
cost, not including royalties, is projected to be $4.30 [CDN] per unit.
If we pay the royalty in advance on all units pressed, as the CMRRA is
requesting, our up-front costs increase by over 27%.  This is a big blow
to a slim budget.

Admittedly, we have been advised by a number of people in the industry
(though not by CMRRA) to simply ignore the royalty liabilty until sales
exceed 5000 units or so.  I realize that this is what a lot of low-budget
producers do.  I am uncomfortable having to sneak around the law, however,
while engaging in what I consider a perfectly legitimate business
activity.

CMRRA has given no hint that they would support this tactic.  Indeed,
they informed me that they expect full payment on units as they are
pressed, regardless of sales.  They have also made no mention whatsoever
of the 5000 unit "demo" limit that S. K. Goodman referred to.

Less disturbing is the music industry-negotiated royalty that owners of
public performance venues pay.  I believe around 2% of their entertainment
budgets get paid to CMRRA.  This seems fairly legitimate, as most music
played in pubs and theatres is a lot less than fifty years old.  The
writers of those works deserve compensation (if, in fact, the money gets
to the actual writers).

I might have an easier time with all of this if I were not aware of other
strong-arm tactics that the royalty agencies have engaged in.  Our local
music conservatory, for instance, pays a flat yearly fee (I think it's
about $1500.00) to the CMRRA for royalties payable on presumed use of
original and photo-copied sheet music.

I don't have too much trouble with that, except that my daughter was
informed, as she walked into her 'cello master class, that she would be
disqualified from her quarterly assessment for using photo-copied sheet
music -- no exceptions.  Guess where that policy came from!  I argued
that the photo-copy in question was of a Peters (Leipzig) Edition printed
in 1880 of a Mozart piece written in 1782.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Rhodes, the
rules are the rules..."

Perhaps this is not quite the policy implementation that CMRRA was after,
but I wouldn't bet on it.

According to CMRRA:

    "Under Canadian law, a musical work is copyrighted if its author is
    still living, or if the author died less than 50 years ago...."

The copyright holder is also enabled, under US law, to collect royalties
on any published composition that is presently 75 years old or less.  This
is rather complicated, isn't it? There might be some comfort in all this
if we knew that payment was actually going to the original writers or
their heirs.  But how many composers and their heirs still actually hold
the copyright on many of those older tunes? And how does one find out?

The history of the music industry is rife with stories of writers and
performers who signed away their rights for a few bucks, or who signed
contracts which effectively ceded all royalty rights to the record company
or publisher after seven years.  Again, with respect to older works, I
think the primary beneficiaries of these laws are corporate shareholders,
and not necessarily composers and musicians.

Doug Rhodes