CEO Cato Strøm summarizes TONO's 2015 year.
/ 22/12/2015 / codex
It is tempting to begin my Christmas greetings to you, TONO members, with a quote from Jean-Michel Jarre, President of CISAC, the global umbrella organization of asset management companies:
“As I travel the world, I find it immensely gratifying to be exposed to the wonderful wealth of talent that is out there—especially from younger people generations—and I am constantly reminded of creators' overwhelming expectation to be treated with respect and receive fair remuneration for any use of their works. We creators stand behind our societies as they adapt to new market conditions to further grow their collections in despite the massive commercial forces that push down the value of our creative works. I have said it many times: we need to protect our collective management system because it is the only one that can ensure a future for creators. We owe it to the new generation of creators and to those who will come after us. It is their world that is shaping up now and it is our responsibility to provide them with a lasting legacy: an efficient network of authors' societies that can foster a fair and sustainable creative eco-system.”
The structural changes we have seen in the music industry and related industries in recent years continue unabated. We see this in various areas, both in the copyright area and in the technological area, which in turn affects how, and where, rights are managed and cleared. The latter will be clearly evident in the important court decisions we face next year.
The Nordic countries are far ahead technologically. That is why we are the pioneers both in terms of legislative work to secure the legal framework, and in how rights are cleared in a digital world. There can be little doubt that technological development is horse heads ahead of the legal adaptation that primarily takes place in the EU and Brussels. It may seem as if national legislation has too little freedom, and is limited by the EU directives that are currently in force.
It remains to be seen whether we are right in this, as we are now a few days away from the Ministry of Culture's bill on a new copyright law. We can probably assume that the ministry will not address important questions regarding "Transfer of Value", in other words: How large internet players, including social media, today live a protected life without responsibility for payment for the copyrighted content they make big money on. Or as Jean-Michel Jarre puts it: “… massive commercial forces that push down the value of our creative works.”
If we move from the general and over to TONO's internal medicine life, it is gratifying to see that TONO is growing. In 2015 we gained nearly 1600 more members, and now have a total of just over 27,500 members. TONO's turnover last year exceeded half a billion and in 2015 the turnover will increase further. The settlement to TONO's rights holders has never been greater than in 2015. This also applies to Norwegian music played abroad.
We have previously mentioned the company Polaris, which is owned by TONO, TEOSTO (Finland) and KODA (Denmark). Polaris is a company we have established to develop common systems to create uniformity and save costs. We are proud of this collaboration, and no “TONO company” we know of has a closer system integration than what we have in Polaris.
In October, TONO, TEOSTO and KODA joined the new works database ICE (International Copyright Enterprise). The project has lasted almost three years, and is a gigantic project for relatively small companies like the Nordic ones. The connection to ICE has gone according to plan, and completely on budget. ICE is today the most modern works documentation database in the world. The companies that have today connected their systems to ICE are PRS for Music (UK), STIM, KODA, TEOSTO, TONO and BumaStemra (Holland). German Gema is in the preparation phase for the transition to ICE.
In conclusion, we would like to point out the importance of our members telling us through the web portal. "My TONO" where they have their live performances. Unfortunately, you cannot count on the organizers to do so. With our members' participation in this area, we will have much better control over where live events take place so that we can provide you with settlements for the work done.
All of us at TONO administration wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Cato Strom
Adm. Manager