The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues has asked the Copyright Board of Canada to exempt Community Leagues from paying Tariff #21, which directs them to pay $185 each year to the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) if there are events in their hall where music is played.
Dozens of leagues have objected to this fee and the financial reporting requirements that accompany it.
In a letter to Copyright Canada, EFCL president David Dodge noted that volunteers don’t want to spend their time raising money to pay taxes, whether it is property tax, business tax or a copyright tariff, which looks to many people like a tax.
“If we try to force them, we run the risk of alienating or even losing the people who are the lifeblood of our organization,” Dodge noted in his letter.
Equally problematic is the tariff requirement that each league sign a document which states that revenues made at events where music was played did not exceed $15,400 per year, including both league events and those run by renters.
Leagues have no way of determining the revenue renters take in, as they don’t have access to their books and are in no position to monitor their events.
This accounting “just won’t happen and it doesn’t matter what you or I or anyone else attempts to suggest on that front,” Dodge informed the board’s Secretary General, Gilles MacDougall.
First approved in 1994, Tariff #21 came to the attention of the EFCL in 2007 when business agents for SOCAN started approaching leagues for payment. Recent efforts by SOCAN to pressure the leagues into paying, including threats of legal action, prompted the EFCL to get involved.
In his letter, President Dodge asked the board to exempt all volunteer-run, non-profit organizations, including Community Leagues.
Copyright Canada has indicated that it will review this tariff in April, 2012 and will include the federation’s letter in that review.
The EFCL intends to ask for the political support of all Edmonton-area MPs at that time.
Read the letter