The Supreme Court of Canada says that songwriters are entitled to one royalty, not two, when their works are offered online for users to download or listen to online.
This decision rendered Friday by the highest court in the country clarifies the scope of an article of the Copyright Act concerning the making available of a work to the public online.
The Copyright Board of Canada had concluded that “the act of making a work available to the public is a distinct activity which is protected and warrants remuneration”.
According to the commission, this distinction had the effect that copyright holders could collect two royalties, one when a song is integrated into a listening platform such as iTunes or Spotify and another when the piece is listened to or downloaded by an user.
The Federal Court of Appeal overturned the commission’s decision.
The Supreme Court added on Friday, saying that the commission’s interpretation “also undermines the purpose of the Copyright Act, because it violates the principle of technological neutrality by requiring users to pay additional royalties for accessing works online.
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