The Canadian Copyright Board has finally ruled on internet music royalties - yes, it really has taken this long to decide whether online music services in Canada should have to pay royalties like radio and TV stations, despite the Society Of Composers, Authors And Music Publishers Of Canada first pushing for such a royalty back in 1995. The ruling, which is retrospective back to 1996, sets out what royalty internet radio stations and other websites that make a high use of music have to pay content owners.
However, the Canadian Copyright Board wasn't persuaded to extend online royalties to non-commercial podcasts and social networking services like MySpace et al. The Board said it was not extending the royalty to these services because they didn't profit from playing music, or music was not a significant enough part of what these websites do. That said, there was dissent in the Board on this issue, so SOCAN are sure to continue to lobby for a royalty for podcasts and social networks which include music.
It's not clear what kind of money will now be collected from online services, but it could be considerable give that the decision is retrospective for twelve years.