Read CEO Cato Strøm's summer greeting.
/ 01/07/2022 / Kristian DugstadDear TONO member,
On behalf of TONO's members, I am happy to say that activity is flourishing again, and that we are slowly but surely returning to what we can call "normalcy" in the live market.
We tell ourselves to stop talking about the two crisis years of 2020 and 2021, and we will. Nevertheless, it has left a mark that we will remember forever, and we will remember how vulnerable this industry is if similar situations arise.
You have heard the boring story that TONO as a company came out of the crisis financially well, but that is because we represent members and member groups who have their activities in very different markets. Those of our members who have their activities in the live market will probably still notice that the audience's behavior after the pandemic is not completely back to old forms.
At TONO's annual meeting on June 8, the annual meeting made changes to TONO's statutes that led to an even stronger member democracy by increasing the number of voting members from cairca1900 to circa 4700. The background is the implementation of the Collective Management Act, which facilitates a strengthened member democracy and strengthened member participation in the organization's activities.
The next directive implementation that will affect TONO is the implementation of the "Online and Retransmission Directive". The directive was adopted in the EU in 2019. As of today, the Ministry of Culture has not yet submitted any proposal on the matter, but there is reason to believe that this will happen during the year.
The directive is intended to strengthen rights holders' rights in a digital age where tech giants, broadcasters and distributors exert strong pressure on various rights holder groups. We believe that our national legislative authorities will use this opportunity to strengthen the Norwegian rights holder side and thus correct the unfortunate side effects that the collective management law brought with it.
On a global level, including Norway, we see that "buyouts" are what are of great concern to many. Many authors are faced with demands for the free purchase of rights. On June 29, Cisac launched a campaign that addresses this. Bjørn Ulvaeus, President of Cisac, says it this way in the introduction:
"In the post-COVID world, the issue of copyright buyouts matters more to creators than ever before. Artists, composers and authors have to be aware of their rights, understand their options and make informed choices on the way they are paid. Their future livelihoods depend on it."
Several well-known authors around the world, see quotes in the campaign, have expressed their concern about the acquisition trend and warn against selling their future assets. The campaign can be found here: https://international.yourmusicyourfuture.com/
Polaris Music Hub, owned by TONO, Teosto and Koda, has experienced strong financial growth over the past two years after we started direct licensing of digital music services throughout Europe. We will now continue into other parts of the world, and look forward to seeing the results of that, and we will overcome the difficulties with non-Latin characters that have been a challenge until now.
All TONO members are wished a really good summer.
Sincerely,
Cato Strom
Adm. Manager