We were troubled last month by reports that SOCAN, a music collection society up in Canada, was looking to get buskers (street performers) to pay performance fees. Now more details are coming out on this story. It really involves TransLink, the Vancouver-area transit authority, and SOCAN, with SOCAN demanding a lot more money from TransLink. Apparently, TransLink quickly caved and agreed to a massive increase in fees, which it is immediately dumping on the buskers themselves — even though most “venues” cover any such fees themselves. It turns out that Buskers in TransLink stations already had to pay $75/year — but now if they want to play during the Olympics, that will be a separate $50 fee just for the Olympics, and the new annual fee will probably be around $300. For busking. I wonder what they want to charge you for humming or singing along?
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