SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) is the Canadian copyright collective for the right to communicate to the public and publicly perform musical works. SOCAN administers these rights on behalf of its members (composers, lyricists, songwriters, and their publishers) and those of affiliated international organizations by licensing the use of their music in Canada. The fees collected are distributed as royalties to its members and to affiliated organizations throughout the world. SOCAN also distributes royalties received from those organizations to its members for the use of their music worldwide. SOCAN has offices in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Dartmouth.

SOCAN publishes Words & Music/Paroles & Musique, a quarterly magazine geared for its membership and also available to the general public, Music Means Business!/Le rythme de vos affaires!, SOCAN’s customer newsletter, as well as numerous brochures, all available on its website at www.socan.ca.

Sam Roberts (born October 2, 1974) is a Juno Award-winning Canadian rock singer-songwriter, whose 2001 debut release, The Inhuman Condition, became one of the bestselling independent releases in Quebec and Canadian music history.

Born in Westmount three weeks after his parents immigrated to Montreal from South Africa, Sam Roberts grew up on Cedar Avenue in Pointe-Claire, where his family moved when he was five years old. He attended St. Edmund Elementary School in Beaconsfield, Loyola High School in N.D.G. and John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue before graduating from McGill University in Montreal. Roberts formed the band that eventually became known as William in 1993. The band's name was changed to Northstar in 1996. Although the band gained some notice in independent rock circles, they never broke through to a national audience and broke up in 1999 after failing to release an album. Roberts' bandmate George Donoso went on to significant success in indie rock circles with The Dears but Roberts struggled for several years afterward.