Pioneer DJ service KUVO partners with Canadian PRO, SOCAN

19 October 2017 - Press release

KUVO, a club culture entertainment service managed by Pioneer DJ, has partnered with Canadian PRO (performing rights organisation) SOCAN to support the fair distribution of royalties to copyright holders of music played at nightclubs in Canada. 

KUVO is a platform providing a new entertainment space for dance music fans that enables DJs to share details of the tracks they’re playing in real time via the KUVO app. It also supports initiatives to fairly distribute royalties to music copyright owners including artists and producers – such as ‘Get Played, Get Paid’ which is led by AFEM¹ – by directly supplying metadata from music being played in clubs to PROs. There are no additional costs for DJs or venues and no maintenance is required from clubs that adopt the free and easily-installed system. 

"Everyone wants to be paid fairly for their music, and I hope that clubs and festivals will be eager to use technology to help ensure that the right people get their fair share of the legal music licenses that they already pay. Props to SOCAN for using the latest technology of KUVO to be even more accurate and transparent for music creators like me," said renowned DJ and KUVO advocate, Richie Hawtin.

After testing KUVO extensively at one of Canada’s largest electronic music nightclubs, CODA in Toronto, SOCAN has welcomed the implementation of the service at any venue in the country wishing to use it. SOCAN is the first North American PRO to use KUVO metadata, joining organisations in the UK, Australia, Belgium and Spain.

“We’re delighted that SOCAN will use metadata from KUVO and we hope that other PROs in North America will see how accurate the service is and come aboard,” said Pioneer DJ Europe Ltd ’s General Manager - Marketing, Mark Grotefeld. “It’s a huge territory and currently there’s a lot of money paid by the venues in licence fees that isn’t finding its way to the artists who own the royalty rights to the music. KUVO can help solve that problem and reward those who produce and own the music played by DJs.”

Nightclubs are required by law to pay licence fees to SOCAN and other music rights organisations for the blanket use of music in their venue. Without technology such as KUVO, matching licence payments with the correct music rights holders has to be carried out manually and can be an onerous and difficult task for either the DJ or the venue owner.

"DJs spin more music in one show than the vast majority of other live musical performances, but it's nearly impossible for them to submit accurate set lists to the PROs," said Vice President of SOCAN’s Distribution department, Kit Wheeler. "Pioneer DJ’s KUVO technology addresses this problem and enables SOCAN to capture even more musical performances in real time and analyse them more accurately. Our partnership with KUVO is a great step forward in getting our more than 150,000 members fairly paid for their work."

Canadian clubs can now join KUVO for free and in turn help support the electronic music industry.