TONO will not demand 144 million from Crude Oil

The company provides access to a number of TV and radio channels from its website VisionOnline, and is managed from the Seychelles, with Seychellois ownership and employees. The general manager claims that "Visiononline.no is only a ticket office that sells tickets to Norwegians who want to make a virtual trip to the Seychelles to watch TV and listen to music". - We regret that we will not use this amount on TONO this year, but hope we can return at a later time if we were to start distributing music in Norway, says the general manager. The VisionOnline website is still in Norwegian, and the content is distributed and received by Norwegian listeners and viewers.

The background to the statements to Nettavisen was that TONO yesterday sent the company a short email in which we requested that the online radio pay remuneration for the use of the music. We informed them of our standard terms, which are 12% of the website's turnover, or a minimum of NOK 600 per month. In addition, we enter into contracts that are adapted to individual cases, where the above-mentioned tariffs do not fit. Based on the standard terms stated in the email, the company made its own calculation.

TONO immediately commented on the statements in Nettavisen.no and stated that we would of course not demand such an amount, and referred to a parallel service we had recently entered into an agreement with and the level of remuneration for this. This operator will pay NOK 30 in remuneration annually for a service where the subscription fee is approximately NOK 400 per year.

TONO further stated to Nettavisen that we considered it reasonable that if someone established a "store" based on our copyright holders' content, the "store owner" would have to share the profits with our members who had supplied the "goods", but of course within a decent level.

The response from TONO was published during the day as part of the main report.

Some online radio operators claim that the law in this area is unclear because what online radios do is link to content that has already been made available, and since the legal status of linking is unclear, TONO cannot demand money for linking.

In response, TONO states that, firstly, not all online radio activity is linking. Nor is it always the linking perspective that is most characteristic of the service. In VisionOnline's case, a paid service has been established based on other people's content. Pure market law considerations indicate that such free-riding for one's own profit cannot be permitted. We are nevertheless prepared to enter into a license agreement in which the online radio's commercial needs are of course also taken into account. TONO wants to facilitate the emergence of new services.

However, TONO maintains its position that through such a collection and arrangement of radio channels, a new availability of music occurs, and that this use should be paid for. For similar services in our neighboring countries, one must also pay a corresponding fee.