TORONTO (Hypebot) – Before he was ousted from TuneCore, former CEO Jeff Price was often critical of performing rights organizations as inefficient and perhaps even unnecessary. Now, he's going to be consulting one. SOCAN – the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada – today announced that Price will "collaborate on potential new concepts and possibilities" to serve their 110,000 members. In candid interviews with both Price and SOCAN CEO Eric Baptiste, the two talked about why they are working together.
"His vision for the industry and for rights holders meshes very nicely with our own – transparency, fair-play and moving with the times," stated Baptiste.
"I'm critical of a lack of transparency. PROs can be extremely opaque," agreed Price. "SOCAN stood out to me relative to others in its sector as it follows these principles."
"As one example, SOCAN does not take any deductions on international incoming revenue," Price continued. "As another, it has no 'black box.' Add to those online royalty calculators that actually tell its members how much they should expect to be paid when their composition is publicly performed."
What kind of projects will Price be working on?
"It's too soon to discuss specifics but, rest assured, we will tap in to Jeff's creativity and energy and strive to put them to work for our more than 110,000 members," Baptiste answered.
But Price pointed toward transparent accounting as an early focus: "The new music industry is about the artist as songwriter/publisher/label/performer. It's vital that the pipelines be built to allow rights to be granted, uses to be audited and money to flow back to the person that controls the rights. The first step to this is auditing. He/she whom can audit the use and consumption of music wins."
And audits are just a starting point. "With auditing comes the ability to issue licenses and pipeline back the money," states Price. "As inefficient as it may have been, the traditional PROs were the best in the world at auditing the analog use of music. They are really set up to lead in the new music industry; they just have to have that drive and mission. SOCAN does."
Will Price also consult other companies?
"Yes. The solutions for artists exist out in the world right now," answered Price. "If I can't build it on my own from scratch like I had done with TuneCore, then I will connect together those who can.This is about changing the world for the better for artists."
