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Jun 28, 2021
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BILLBOARD CANADA FYI
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Door 24
Simple Plan at Festival d'été de Québec in Quebec City on July 4, 2025.
Legal News
SOCAN Sues Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) Over Licensing Fees: Report
As the Quebec City music festival started on July 3, it was hit with a lawsuit from the performing rights organization claiming it had "failed to obtain a license from SOCAN and...not paid any royalties or submitted any report forms to SOCAN.”
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The Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) is being sued by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) for copyright infringement and failure to pay royalties for approximately three years, according to a report by the National Post.
SOCAN, which is responsible for granting licences and collecting royalties on licensed music in Canada, claims in the lawsuit filed in Federal Court that since at least July 2022, the festival’s organizers “have failed to obtain a license from SOCAN and have not paid any royalties or submitted any report forms to SOCAN.”
The lawsuit, which was filed July 3 (the same day the festival began), cites The Festival international d’été de Québec Inc. and BLEUFEU as defendants in the case.
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“SOCAN will seek redress for all of these activities,” according to court documents obtained by the newspaper.
In the lawsuit, the organization alleges that “the [FEQ organizers] relied on their tax status as charities to exempt themselves from paying royalties to music creators and their publishers when their music is played at the festival venue.”
There are 11 groups and artists named in the lawsuit, including Les Trois Accords, Tokyo Police Club, Karkwa, pianist Alexandra Stréliski and Montreal rock band Half Moon Run.
“Failure to pay royalties to music creators and their publishers undermines the foundations of the music industry and deprives them of the income they are legitimately entitled to for their work,” SOCAN said in a written statement on its website.
On Saturday (July 12), FEQ released a statement to Canadian Press that “fair remuneration, in accordance with the highest industry standards,” is one of the festival’s core values.
The organizers questioned SOCAN’s motives for “filing legal proceedings in the middle of the festival, despite discussions that had been ongoing until very recently" and that “proceeding in English, in the context of a Quebec cultural event, seems inappropriate and disconnected from the reality of the community.” FEQ said it had a different interpretation of the law from SOCAN, and that other comparable organizations shared the same interpretation.
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SOCAN has yet to respond to the festival’s claims.
One of Canada's biggest music festivals, FEQ concluded on Sunday, July 13, after 10 days of programming. This year's iteration boasted popular artists from across the genre spectrum, including Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, Shania Twain, Def Leppard, Slayer, Benson Boone and more.
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