Read TONO's input to the bill on amendments to the Copyright Act, and watch CEO Karl Vestli present the input to the Family and Culture Committee.
/ 10/06/2026 / Kristian DugstadIntroduction
TONO refers to Prop. 41 LS (2025-2026) and the proposal for the implementation of the rules on text and data mining ("TDM") in the Copyright Act, sections 50 e and 50 f, and new provisions on dispute resolution in the Copyright Board in section 65 below.
Reservation against the use of works for text and data mining – Section 50e, third paragraph
To begin with, TONO would like to point out that developments since the DSM Directive was adopted have shown that the scheme with a broad exception and the possibility of "opt-out" does not work. In a report from the Committee on Legal Affairs in the European Parliament (JURI) on 25 February 2026, it was emphasized, among other things, that the current systems for reservation of rights ("opt-out") for copyrighted content are often impractical and lack the necessary transparency, which prevents effective implementation and enforcement (point K). On 10 March 2026, the European Parliament gave full support to the JURI report's proposal by 460 votes to 71, and asked the Commission to investigate new mechanisms to ensure that rightholders can exclude their works from being used for training artificial intelligence. This is not mentioned in the proposal.
TONO believes that Article 4 should not have been implemented, and points out that large countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have decided not to implement the provision. When the provision is nevertheless implemented, it is crucial that the right of reservation is designed in a way that is effective and feasible for all rightholders, including those represented by collective management organizations.
Article 4 of the DSM Directive introduces a system where rightholders must reserve their intellectual property against commercial AI companies exploiting their intellectual property for training AI models. This represents a significant encroachment on the exclusive right, and requires that the right of reservation be real and practically enforceable.
The bill stipulates that the copyright holder may make reservations “in an appropriate manner”.
However, it appears from the preparatory work that "reservation by machine-readable methods will probably be the only appropriate option" for material that is openly available on the Internet, see Prop. 41 LS page 40.1. In addition, the Ministry states on page 42 that the reservation must be made in connection with each individual work that is to be exempted. These guidelines mean that collective management organizations will not be able to exercise a valid reservation right in practice.
In the case of collective management of musical works, it is not possible to enter a reservation using machine-readable methods, and it is also not possible to link the reservation to each individual work. The management organisations do not themselves control the distribution of the works online, and it will therefore be practically impossible for TONO to enter a reservation in connection with the individual work or on the website where the individual work is published. The Ministry's guidelines for the content of the reservation condition will therefore entail an interpretation that will be difficult to reconcile with fundamental EU/EEA legal principles, in particular the principle of directive-compliant interpretation and the effet utile principle.[l ]
The Norwegian implementation of Article 4 must therefore ensure a practically feasible reservation mechanism for music rights on the Internet. For TONO, it is crucial that point 18 of the preamble specifies that “machine-readable means” includes reservations given in the “terms and conditions of a website or a service”. A clear and express reservation in TONO’s terms of use, and corresponding clearly accessible text on TONO’s websites, must therefore be considered a machine-readable means according to the preamble’s own definition. In addition, it will be relevant to reserve in other ways, where appropriate.
Against this background, TONO assumes that collective management organisations must be able to exercise the right of reservation in the following ways: (i) clear and publicly available statements, such as reservations in the form of text in TONO's terms of use and websites; (ii) collective en bloc reservations towards large customers; and (iii) other appropriate and verifiable forms, such as reservations in licensing agreements and in inquiries to KI actors.
TONO proposes that the committee adopt the following comments on § 50 e, third paragraph:
The Committee emphasizes that the right of reservation against the use of material on the Internet must be real and practicable for all rightholders. Where machine-readable solutions are not practically available, or it is not practicable to exercise the reservation in connection with each individual work, the right of reservation must also be exercisable in another appropriate manner.
Dispute Resolution Scheme (Copyright Board)
The Ministry has concluded that the handling of disputes regarding reasonable remuneration in the Copyright Board requires agreement between the parties (§ 65 c).
All experience suggests that resourceful counterparties such as commercial broadcasters and TV distributors will largely refuse to use a voluntary dispute resolution mechanism. If access to the tribunal requires the consent of both parties, this will in practice give the stronger party an effective opportunity to prevent tribunal proceedings. The consequence is that the scheme risks becoming illusory in those cases where the need is greatest.
In order for the Copyright Board to fulfill its intended role as an effective, balanced and low-threshold alternative to court proceedings, the scheme must be mandatory in the sense that either party can bring a dispute before the Board, in the same way as the existing scheme in Section 62 of the Copyright Act.
TONO proposes that the committee adopt the following comments on Section 65 c:
The Committee assumes that disputes can be brought before the Copyright Board by either party, without the requirement for consent from the other party. The provision should therefore read as follows:
The first paragraph is amended to read: "Disputes regarding the amount of remuneration and remuneration adjustment pursuant to Section 69 may be brought by either party to the Copyright Board, which may determine the remuneration in a binding manner." The third paragraph is repealed.
TONO's CEO Karl Vestli will be present at the hearing and TONO is happy to contribute to the further work.