$57M: CMRRA Royalty Payout in 2020

By FYI Staff

The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) reports having distributed over $57 million to music publishers and self-published songwriters in 2020.

Online streaming featured significantly in these figures, representing an increase of more than 17% compared to 2019’s distributions for streaming year-over-year. The Toronto agency, with a repertoire database of over 40M musical works, representing 142K music catalogues, celebrated their 46th year of operation in May 2021.
 
“We know how significantly the music industry has been affected by the global pandemic," CMRRA President Paul Shaver said in a statement. “The live sector has been decimated by venue closures, festival shutdowns and tour cancellations. At the same time, it’s also resulted in a renewed focus on rights and royalties. Catalogue sales have been making news headlines. During the lockdown, commercial radio revenues received by CMRRA were down by 30% in 2020. We know how important it is for royalty payments to reach people right now, and we’re thrilled that we were able to process and distribute over $57 million of mechanical royalties in 2020 to music publishers and self-published songwriters.”
 
Behind the scenes, CMRRA has been investing in an improved processing technology platform that will improve verify and expedite collections and distributions.

In March 2021, the agency launched a new International Collections service. Working in tandem with the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the MLC) for the US and with IMPEL (a UK based collective) for countries outside of North America.

In June 2021, CMRRA announced a multi-year agreement with TikTok, ensuring rights holders are paid for music used within video creations on the platform. Licensing agreements were also finalized for Online Music Service collection portfolio with Qobuz, Indigenous Cloud, ACX music (who operate the Ultimate Fighting Championship streaming application), as well as classical streaming service, Primephonic. A licensing agreement renewal was also completed with Soundcloud for the same portfolio.