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MROC is currently completing its final payments to performers. As of January 1, 2025, all MROC performer mandates will either be transferred to ARTISTI or terminated if the performer has chosen another collective for representation. MROC will continue to remain open for some months with minimal staff in order to complete disposing of its assets.
If you’re a performer represented by MROC, please visit the FAQ and your portal account (set one up if you don’t yet have one) in order to find more information about the transfer of mandates, repertoire, and royalties.
Since MROC will no longer distribute to individual performers after December 31, 2024, unpaid royalties will, for the most part, be transferred to a performer’s new collective for onward distribution; in some special cases, foreign royalties may need to be returned to the originating foreign collective but we expect these cases to be rare. This includes payments made in December that were cancelled because of incorrect banking or addresses; MROC cannot reissue any payments after December 31 but will need to send them on to a performer’s new collective for later distribution. In the case of unlocatable performers, we will be able to provide information soon about where those royalties will be maintained for performers to come forward to claim them.
Most importantly, thank you to all the wonderful musicians who have worked with MROC over the years and to our amazing team of employees to whom we must, sadly, say goodbye very soon.
Questions can be sent to info@musiciansrights.ca. MROC is currently operating with one full-time and one part-time employee so it may take us a little time to respond to your question. Rest assured that we will respond as soon as we are able.
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Who We Are
The Musicians’ Rights Organization Canada (MROC) is a Canadian federally incorporated not-for-profit organization whose primary objective is to collect and distribute royalties to musicians and vocalists. MROC distributes the performer’s share of neighbouring rights and private copying royalties. These royalties primarily flow from the broadcast and public performance of sound recordings and are based on tariffs approved by the Copyright Board of Canada. MROC represents more than 14,000 musicians, from session players to featured artists, recording across the full range of genres.
HISTORY
MROC was founded on September 30, 2009 as a federally incorporated not-for-profit “collective society” which collects remuneration, royalties, license fees, levies and other compensation arising from musicians’ and vocalists’ performances on sound recordings. At that time, MROC took over the role that AFM Canada’s Musicians’ Neighbouring Rights Royalties (MNRR) had played since 1998.
In 1997, the Copyright Act of Canada was amended to allow musicians, vocalists and record companies to collect royalties for their role in the creation of sound recordings.
The new “neighbouring rights” regime expressly recognized the rights of musicians and vocalists in their performances and their right to compensation (called “equitable remuneration”) for the public performance or broadcast of their performances on recordings.
The new regime, resulted in the formation of the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC), which is now known as Re:Sound. Re:Sound collects remuneration for musicians and vocalists as well as for sound recording makers under tariffs certified by the Copyright Board of Canada. It then forwards to MROC (and the other Canadian performer collectives ARTISTI and ACTRA RACS) its share for distribution to the musicians and vocalists it represents. Further information about these tariffs is available through the Copyright Board’s website: www.cb-cda.gc.ca and Re:Sound’s website: www.resound.ca.
In the years since its inception, MROC has distributed almost $40 million (comprised of both Canadian royalties collected by Re:Sound and international royalties collected through agreements MROC has established with collecting societies in other countries) to the performers it represents.
In 2024, due to broad changes in the industry and overall declining royalties for MROC’s members, the MROC Membership approved a proposal to wind-down the organization. MROC is preparing for that wind-down with distribution of royalties expected to be completed by December 2024.
As of January 1, 2025, MROC will transfer its performer mandates to another Canadian collecting society representing performers, ARTISTI. A performer wishing to move their mandate to a collective other than ARTISTI may do so by notifying MROC by December 31, 2024 of the termination of their MROC mandate effective January 1st. For further information about the wind-down, please see the FAQ.
