High foreign income contributes to the largest TONO settlement ever

Increased use of Norwegian music abroad is one of the reasons why TONO can settle its largest ordinary quarterly settlement ever. A total of 131,3 million kroner will be settled this week to composers, lyricists and music publishers at home and abroad.

In September last year, TONO settled 122 million kroner. This year, TONO can increase this to 131,3 million kroner. Of this, 73,5 million kroner goes to members of TONO, while 53,8 million kroner goes to rights holders abroad. 3,9 million kroner is reserved for currently unidentified rights holders/musical works, unannounced musical works, non-members and disputed rights.

– The settlement for the use of Norwegian music abroad this time is 13,5 million kroner, which is very high. This is because more and more Norwegian music is being used abroad and that we at TONO do a good job of capturing the use of the music we manage, says CEO Cato Strøm.

But high foreign income is not the only reason for the record settlement:

– We are settling 7 million kroner in additional settlement for a residual settlement after a dispute in the cable area was resolved, and we have also decided to postpone the settlement of the private copying fee until September. It is also worth noting that we normally settle the cinema settlement until September, but that this year we did this in June. This further emphasizes how good a result we can actually achieve now, says Strøm.

Here are the areas that are being settled for:

• Performances on Norwegian radio and television in the first quarter of 2016
• Concerts in 2015
• Performances abroad
• Netflix for the second quarter of 2015
• TV2 Sumo for 2015
• Additional billing for NRK TV and TV2
• Private copying for 2014
• Various post-clearance settlements, direct settlements and adjustments

Also 6 million from NCB
In addition to the aforementioned funds that are settled from TONO, NOK 6 million also flows to TONO members from NCB (Nordic Copyright Bureau), a company owned by TONO and the other Nordic sister societies. These funds come, among other things, from the use of TONO's repertoire in online services:

• iTunes for the fourth quarter of 2015
• Spotify for March-May 2016
• Tidal for December 2015 and January-March 2016
• Google Play fourth quarter 2015

Those of TONO's members who receive a settlement will have the money in their account by Saturday, October 1st.

For more information:
Willy Martinsen, communications manager at TONO, mobile: 909 65,254, email: Willy.martinsen@tono.no

Photo above: istockphoto.com