The CMRRA, a company that has been providing licensing and royalty collection services in Canada for over 48 years, has announced its fiscal results for 2022. They distributed over $52 million (CAD 70,000,000) to music publishers and self-published songwriters that they represent.
The distribution of content increased by 14% overall in 2022. This was mainly due to the significant growth in online streaming and audiovisual distributions, with online distributions increasing by over 15% and audiovisual distributions increasing by 16% compared to 2021. Additionally, international collections experienced a remarkable surge, with a growth of over 570% compared to the previous year.
“We’re thrilled to have processed and distributed over $70 million dollars of mechanical royalties to our music publisher and self-published songwriter clients last year,” said Paul Shaver, President of CMRRA. “This outcome is a direct result of higher music consumption and improved rates in the marketplace as CMRRA, with the guidance of the Canadian Publishers Committee (CPC), continues to negotiate and push for fair compensation for the music publishing and songwriter communities. CMRRA is continuously innovating and making enhancements to better serve our clients. Our clients are at the heart of everything we do, and their trust in CMRRA is truly humbling. Their invaluable support serves as the driving force behind CMRRA’s ability to execute its core functions and deliver exceptional results. The accomplishments and progress we’ve made is a direct result of the expertise and passion exhibited by the team who go above and beyond to ensure that the needs of partners and the music community are met with professionalism and care.”
At CMRRA, the top priority is to improve its services for our clients constantly. As part of this goal, they have introduced an upgraded Electronic Song Registration Form as an alternative to CWR. This new form is aimed at enhancing customer service levels and speeding up the processing of song information. With the introduction of this enhanced format, clients will benefit from the following features:
- Numerous system enhancements to matching algorithms and related repertoire processing to improve the automated ingestion of song registrations
- Increased client service and transparency of data, as registered works will be processed more quickly, and more of the catalog will be visible to clients via CMRRA Direct
- Extended set of fields to enable a broader range of data, including optional fields for performing right shares and US territory claims
Highlights from CMRRA’s 2022 distribution include:
- Total distributions: $52 million (14% increase in total distributions over 2021)
- Over 93% of distributions from digital music services
- 75% of distributions from online services (streaming and downloads)
- A 15% increase in online distributions over 2021
- A 129% increase in online historical/back-claims over 2021
- 18% of distributions from audiovisual services
- A 16% increase over 2021
- 570% increase in international collections over 2021
