As we approach the Christmas holidays in full swing, we at TONO can look back on an exceptionally demanding, eventful and important year. In TONO's 90th year, we have fought battles that will have an impact on the field of copyright for many years to come. Here is this year's annual summary and Christmas greetings from CEO Cato Strøm.
/ 21/12/2018 / Kristian DugstadAs we approach the Christmas holidays in full swing, we at TONO can look back on an exceptionally demanding, eventful and important year. In TONO's 90th year, we have fought battles that will have an impact on the field of copyright for many years to come. Here is this year's annual summary and Christmas greetings from CEO Cato Strøm.
The spring was marked by great enthusiasm for the new Copyright Act, and section 71 in particular set many artists on fire. The section could be interpreted as meaning that artists will transfer their copyright to the client when they write a commission and the client is responsible for the costs. We saw a tremendous amount of enthusiasm among TONO members, while we in TONO maintained direct contact with our elected representatives and the Ministry of Culture. The result was good in the end. The new Copyright Act, which was implemented into Norwegian law on July 1, involved a modernization of the previous Copyright Act. No radical changes, but some important principles have been clarified.
The Act introduces in §69 the right to so-called "reasonable remuneration". TONO has argued that it does not make sense to introduce a rule on "reasonable remuneration" without linking this to a statutory dispute resolution mechanism. We are pleased that the Storting in its legislative resolution asks the Ministry of Culture to return to the Storting after they have investigated this issue. The Storting has also asked the Ministry of Culture to continuously monitor developments in the EU, where discussions on "the value gap" will be decided at the beginning of 2019.
It is expensive to take cases to court. Hardly anyone has the resources to take on important battles in the area of copyright. TONO has been in such a demanding legal dispute with RiksTV since 2012. TONO won both in the District Court and in the Court of Appeal. And on December 4, a unanimous Supreme Court announced that TONO had won against RiksTV.
RiksTV is now responsible for making intellectual property available. The case has cost TONO countless hours of administration and skyrocketing costs. TONO was awarded the legal costs, and RiksTV had to pay TONO. kr 8,3 millions.
As TONO sees it, this ruling is as important in the area of copyright as the new Copyright Act, and it also has interest beyond the country's borders. The Supreme Court has determined that RiksTV is not only a technical supplier, but also makes protected music and other types of works available to the general public.
TONO is now calculating the compensation claim against RiksTV, which according to the verdict goes back all the way to 2009. This claim will be very high.
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The EU has been working on a new copyright directive for the digital area since 2016. It is high time. Based on the e-commerce directive from 2001, user-generated services have claimed that they do not need to clarify with rights holders that enormous amounts of music are uploaded and consumed on their services. Billions of kroner are thus ending up in the wrong pockets. Revenues that, in our view, should accrue to authors and artists are booked in the accounts of Facebook, YouTube and so on. The vote on the new directive text that would impose the necessary responsibility on the services in the EU Parliament on 12 September went in favor of the rights holders, but the last word has not been said.
The directive texts have been sent on to trialogue negotiations ahead of a new and final vote in the EU Parliament, provisionally scheduled for 17 January 2019. Unfortunately, the latest reports from our people in Brussels are not unequivocally positive. The battle is far from won in this area. We are entering nerve-wracking times.
TONO has been largely characterized by our collaboration with our sister societies Teosto (FI) and KODA (DK) throughout 2019. The three companies work in common reporting and distribution systems, and also work together to develop new, digital solutions for the future. Together we can reduce costs through innovation and efficiency improvements.
We look forward to sharing some exciting news with the world in 2019. We also conduct an annual survey of the music habits of the Nordic population in the Polaris Digital Music survey, which I encourage you to take part in. read more about here.
TONO's employees have made a huge effort throughout 2018. TONO has many thousands of customers among Norwegian companies and organizations, large and small, and the income does not come by itself. Behind it lie time-consuming negotiations and daily contact with customers.
In 2019, we have run four ordinary quarterly settlements, including the largest in TONO's history in September - with a total of 170,3 million kroner. It is the foreign revenues that stand out as particularly interesting. Here we have seen enormous growth in recent years. Norwegian music has a position we could only dream of a few years ago.
We awarded 12,1 million in scholarships in 2018, making TONO's scholarship scheme one of the country's largest for composers. We know that the scholarships contribute to the creation of new music. We also awarded five EDVARD prizes and TONO's Mediator Prize at the end of the year. The prize draws attention to the important work of composers and lyricists. With a new trophy of the year, designed by TONO members' composer colleague Magne Furuholmen, we also have a great trophy for the coming years.
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We are proud that TONO, in its 90th year, was awarded the Samvirkeprisen. For us, it is an encouragement and confirmation that the cooperative form is perfect for collective management. When individual creators come together in a community, and together offer everyone's individual repertoires to music users, which includes everything from major broadcasters and streaming services to cinemas, concert organizers and hairdressers - then the creators stand 
far stronger. Fragmentation in this area means being weaker. That's why it's nice to see that TONO is growing like never before. Also in 2018, we gained around 1600 new members, so that TONO reached around 32,000 members during the year.
The cooperative form also means that it is the members who own and manage TONO. And I would therefore like to remind you that there are active TONO members on TONO's board, committees and other committees. With members appointed by the annual meeting in such central positions, we ensure that TONO is among the world's most democratic and diverse management organizations, not least when it comes to gender balance. We are the only company in the world that has a rule in its articles of association that the board's composition must consist of at least 40% of each gender.
Thank you to TONO's customers for using music and thank you to the members for creating. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
Cato Strom
Adm. Manager
21. December 2018