TONO welcomes the EU directive

– This is good news. The directive will help streamline practices in the various EU countries both around the licensing of music rights for online use and, not least, how collecting societies should manage their mandate. We believe the directive is good for rights holders throughout Europe, and it gives collecting societies equal competitive conditions. As early as 2008, TONO and a handful of other European collecting societies urged the EU to introduce such a directive, and we are pleased that the parliament voted in favor of the directive by a large majority this week, says TONO's CEO Cato Strøm. 

The new rules stipulate that music service providers in the EU must be granted multi-territorial licenses when they wish to use protected music. The directive also stipulates that collecting societies that only offer licenses in one country must be able to have their repertoire licensed in other countries through other societies, and that repertoire must be treated under the same conditions as their own repertoire.

The Directive also states that all collecting societies shall ensure that authors receive payment as soon as possible, and at the latest within 9 months of the end of the year in which remuneration has been collected. Furthermore, the Directive states that members of collecting societies shall have the right to influence how their rights are managed, and that they shall be free to choose the collecting society of their choice. There are also requirements for transparency, and requirements for good governance are also defined. For TONO, these points will not entail any particular changes in existing practice or statutory structure.

The directive was adopted with 640 votes in favour, 18 against, and 22 abstentions. The directive still needs to be formally adopted by the EU Council, and after that, EU member states, as well as EEA countries, will have to implement the directive into their national legislation within 24 months.