For TONO, 2017 was marked by fierce battles for copyright, says TONO's CEO in his Christmas greeting to TONO members.
/ 22/12/2017 / Willy Martinsen2017 has been an eventful year for TONO, but also for other groups of rights holders. I am thinking in particular of the government's proposal for a new copyright law.
In April, the Ministry of Culture issued a legislative proposal that would give us a long-awaited new copyright law, and which, according to politicians, would strengthen the position of authors and performers, make them better able to make a living from their works and achievements, and rebalance the interests of society (read: users and artists). We believe we have grounds to say that in the last 15-20 years we have seen a development within copyright that has not been in the favor of copyright holders.
Unfortunately, in our view, the legislative proposal had a different content than the consultation note from autumn 2016 contained. This led to a strong revolt against the draft law, and in short, it ended with the Storting postponing the consideration of the law. The new Storting will now resume the legislative work after the new year. The Copyright Act is our most important cultural law, and it is intended to give authors and artists a legal basis to be able to make a living from their works and achievements.
TONO and the group associations NOPA, the Norwegian Composers' Association and the Music Publishers have put in a lot of work to reverse the content of the proposition. This work will continue with unabated strength in 2018.
Copyright must be defended in many areas these days, including in courtrooms. The ongoing legal dispute between TONO and RiksTV is a good example. RiksTV will not pay for its access to copyrighted material that TONO manages. TONO has won the case both in Oslo District Court in 2016 and in Borgarting Court of Appeal in December this year. According to statements in the media, RiksTV will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
We would naturally like to avoid such litigation. After TONO's victory in the Court of Appeal, RiksTV was ordered to pay TONO 6,2 million in legal costs. This clearly shows that there is a great financial risk involved in bringing such cases to court. There are probably no other rights holder groups than TONO that can undertake to conduct such cases. This naturally raises the question of what legal protection rights holders actually have. Unfortunately, the legal risk is far too great for the average rights holder or his/her member association to take on the big content providers. As long as the legislator is not willing to establish effective dispute resolution mechanisms – something TONO has long requested, excessively expensive legal processes will put an end to the ability to pursue their rights.
It is gratifying to see that Norwegian authors and artists are doing very well abroad at the moment. We can see this from the increasing income from abroad. We believe that this trend will continue in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, TONO will make several visits to our larger foreign sister societies to ensure that Norwegian authors' works are correctly registered and reported. Our rights holders should experience that TONO is an effective manager of their works even if the performances take place outside Norway's borders.
Sincerely,
Cato Strom
Adm. Manager