CMRRA’s online database contains more than two million songs and is an excellent source of information regarding compositions written and published by copyright owners located all over the world. While we do our best to ensure that all information concerning those compositions is accurate and up-to-date, song and catalogue ownership can change hands frequently and, as a result, the information may need to be verified with the publisher(s) in question. It is also possible that the song you are looking for is not listed in our online database. This does not mean that the composition is not represented by CMRRA but it does indicate that we will have to verify its ownership with the publisher(s) concerned if that publisher is represented by CMRRA.
The process of verifying song ownerships with our publishers may take a few days to many months and we cannot issue a license until this confirmation has been obtained. It may also happen on occasion that a copyright owner cannot be identified or located. If that’s the case with the composition you wish to use, CMRRA will refund the royalties to you after we have exhausted all possible avenues of research. At that point, if you can demonstrate that all reasonable efforts to locate the copyright owner have been made, you may then submit your license application to the Copyright Board of Canada pursuant to Section 70.7 of the Copyright Act. If you make applications to CMRRA for any songs which are in the public domain, or not represented by CMRRA, your payment for those songs will be refunded promptly (excluding the associated handling fees). In order to avoid submitting license applications and making a payment of royalties and handling fees for songs not represented by CMRRA, we invite you to research CMRRA’s Repertoire in advance.
