The largest streaming services and broadcasters can disagree profoundly with the people who own the music they use. That disagreement may ultimately require the Copyright Board of Canada to decide what a fair tariff looks like. But when the Board is still hearing the case, there is another question that comes first: should a party be able to stop the process and ask an appeal court to review preliminary conclusions?
In Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Apple Canada Inc., 2026 FCA 122, the Federal Court of Appeal said not yet. The dispute grew out of SOCAN's request for royalty rates covering the use of musical works in online audiovisual and user-generated content services between 2014 and 2026. The proceeding involved a wide range of technology, media and broadcasting businesses, among them Apple, Bell, Google, Netflix and other major participants. No one needed the Federal Court of Appeal to decide the rates in this particular hearing. The immediate dispute concerned whether the Board's early procedural conclusions could be challenged in court before the tariff-setting process ended.
The Copyright Board had divided its proceeding into two stages. Phase I considered four preliminary issues, including the effect of the Supreme Court's decision in CBC v. SODRAC on tariff-setting and the potential application of specified statutory copyright exceptions. Phase II would continue the broader evidentiary and tariff analysis. SOCAN disagreed with the Phase I ruling and sought judicial review, arguing that its legal consequences were sufficiently final to warrant immediate court intervention.
The respondents moved to strike that application. They pointed to the ordinary principle that administrative decision makers should usually be allowed to complete their own proceedings before judges intervene. That isn't simply a rule designed to save judicial time. It reflects a practical problem: an early question may look very different once the full record has been heard, and the decision maker may have authority to reconsider an initial conclusion. Repeated trips to court partway through a hearing can interrupt the process and make a complex proceeding substantially harder to finish.
Justice Monaghan, writing reasons with which Justices Laskin and Roussel agreed, accepted the prematurity argument. The Court distinguished an earlier case in which a first-stage Copyright Board decision had conclusively deprived SOCAN of the ability to collect royalties from an entire class of users. Here, the Phase I conclusions were expressly preliminary. The Board had contemplated revisiting them if evidence presented in the next stage justified doing so. The Court considered that distinction important.
SOCAN argued that the Board's reconsideration safeguard wasn't an effective remedy, particularly where its challenge concerned questions of law and where Phase I might shape what evidence could be presented later. The Court wasn't persuaded that those concerns made judicial review necessary now. It noted the Board's broad procedural authority and ability to manage evidence and revisit orders. The proper course was to continue before the Board, preserve arguments there and, if necessary, seek judicial review after the administrative process produced a final decision.
The Court also rejected the contention that exceptional circumstances justified early intervention. The consequences of the Phase I ruling weren't so immediate or radical that allowing the proceeding to continue would undermine the rule of law. Even important legal objections ordinarily need to be raised through the administrative process first. That does not mean the objections are trivial. It means the tribunal should have a proper opportunity to decide the case it has been assigned.
The ruling is particularly relevant to people who read music royalty litigation as a referendum on whether artists or technology companies are winning. This judgment doesn't answer that larger economic question. The Federal Court of Appeal did not decide the rates SOCAN may collect for the period at issue. It didn't approve or reject a formula for streaming revenues, determine which individual uses ultimately attract royalties or settle the disputed application of every copyright exception. It decided that SOCAN's application for judicial review was premature.
That limit is the most important part of reporting the case accurately. A dismissal can sound decisive when it appears in a headline, but dismissing an early court challenge does not necessarily mean SOCAN has lost its position before the Copyright Board. The Court expressly left open the possibility of challenging issues from Phase I following the final Phase II decision, subject to the ordinary principles governing which arguments must first be presented to the Board.
There is a practical lesson for creative businesses as well. A composer, publisher, broadcaster or streaming platform may invest considerable resources in a tariff proceeding that stretches across years. Important rights are at stake, but the process through which those rights are quantified has its own structure. Parties should document their concerns, develop the evidence and use the review opportunities available at the appropriate stage, rather than assume every interim disagreement can be taken immediately to an appellate court.
The Federal Court of Appeal awarded $5,000 in all-inclusive costs to the three moving respondents and dismissed the judicial review application without prejudice to a properly timed future challenge. That is a meaningful procedural result, but not a final answer about music royalties.
For Binder Humanities, the case belongs to Music, Film and Culture because it concerns how the law values musical works distributed through audiovisual platforms. The underlying arguments connect creative expression with technologies that deliver it to audiences. The decision also offers a broader reminder that a legal process can have a consequential intermediate ruling without the underlying cultural and economic dispute having reached its conclusion.
Primary source reviewed: Federal Court of Appeal, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Apple Canada Inc., 2026 FCA 122, June 29, 2026, unanimous reasons of Monaghan J.A., Laskin and Roussel JJ.A. concurring. The court's procedural ruling did not decide the final music tariffs.