For many years, the Association des professionnels de l’édition musicale (APEM) has been behind the Évangéline initiative, a database of song lyrics and authorizations that allows for the commercial exploitation of those texts.
On Nov. 29, 2024, APEM informed its members that as of Dec. 31, 2024, it would cease to manage rights holder authorizations via Evangeline, and that all its commercial agreements would terminate. In other words, APEM will no longer collect royalties for the exploitation of song lyrics online.
SOCAN Reproduction Rights has negotiated agreements with Copibec, MusixMatch, and LyricFind for the exploitation of online lyrics. The lyrics contained in Évangeline will therefore continue to be sent to these operators, who will ensure the legal and compensated exploitation of song lyrics in Québec’s schools, as well as online on services such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Google Play Music, Deezer, Shazam, MetroLyrics, and many other sites, platforms, and applications. APEM will continue to manage the database itself, but members will have to entrust the administration of reproduction rights for online lyrics to another entity. SOCAN Reproduction Rights is one of the options for handling authorizations, licences, collection, and distribution to its customers.
To ensure the legal exploitation of your song lyrics, APEM and SOCAN encourage you to do the following:
- Make sure that SOCAN Reproduction Rights represents your repertoire for the exploitation of online lyrics. If you’re already affiliated with SOCAN Reproduction Rights, you may not need to do anything.
- Upload your song lyrics in Évangéline to promote their development and use.
“We’ll do everything we can to ensure that the song lyrics contained in the Évangéline database continue to be showcased, and that rights holders are fairly and effectively compensated for their valuable work,” said Martin Lavallée, Head of SOCAN Reproduction Rights.