The hub in the encounter with the world repertoire
As the administrator of the copyrights to musical works for more than 43,000 Norwegian authors (as of 2024), as well as several million authors from around the world, TONO is the hub for meeting a world repertoire of protected music in Norway. TONO's activities are conducted on the basis of the authors' rights under the Copyright Act, and with a mandate from the Ministry of Culture. TONO is the facilitator for the use of protected music in the public domain in Norway, and its vision is to create value for creators and users of music. It is fundamental for TONO that we should be perceived as accessible and service-oriented in meeting our customers - and that it should be easy to use our service offering: The license that makes it possible to use TONO's repertoire in the public domain.

The license that moves music forward
TONO is owned and managed by Norwegian authors and music publishers, and through TONO, songwriters, composers, lyricists and music publishers can be sure that their music is made available to the community, while at the same time being assured of fair payment for the use of their musical works. As a non-profit company, and with low administrative costs, TONO will ensure that the collected remuneration is passed on to the rights holders of performed works.

TONO is thus an indispensable hub in the value chain from composers to music users – and back to the rights holders again. By paying rights holders associated with TONO when their music is used, they are given an economic basis for creating new music, which in turn benefits society.

Cultural means
TONO's cultural funds are intended to promote music and cultural purposes in Norway, and are a significant initiative in a Norwegian cultural context. By virtue of the fact that TONO is a collective where everyone contributes financially to running the organization, and where everyone also benefits from belonging to TONO, up to 8 percent is deducted from the settlement before it is distributed to Norwegian and foreign rights holders. In 2024, the cultural funds amounted to NOK 54,4 million, which constituted 7,7 percent of the distribution sum for 2022, when the funds for cultural funds for 2024 were set aside. Approximately half originates from Norwegian rights holders. The funds are distributed with 1/3 to scholarship schemes, of which 1/8 is distributed through the Music Publishers' Scholarship Scheme and the remaining 7/8 through the TONO Scholarship.

The remaining 2/3 are used to promote national musical cultural purposes through TONO's group associations NOPA, the Norwegian Composers' Association and the Music Publishers. In order to carry out tasks to promote Norwegian creative music and Norwegian musical works, as well as for other special purposes, the funds are distributed according to the following key: NOPA (45%), the Norwegian Composers' Association 35%) and the Music Publishers (20%).