TONO submitted a submission to the government-appointed music committee on February 7. Read it here.
/ 08/02/2024 / Willy MartinsenThe recording was also performed orally on The Music Committee without input conference during Trondheim Calling on Friday, February 2nd.
TONO was established in 1928 and manages copyrights for composers, lyricists, songwriters and music publishers. We have 41,000 members and also represent millions of authors and music publishers from the rest of the world. We grant permission for the use of their music and settle money to copyright holders at home and abroad.
We are experiencing enormous price pressure from media houses and services that offer music to the public, such as broadcasters and film and music streaming services. Negotiations often take several years, and we too often have to resort to lawsuits, which often cost many millions of kroner.
The government's proposed new dispute resolution body, the Copyright Board, on the other hand, excludes collective management companies like TONO, despite the fact that we have been calling for such a solution for over 20 years. The board is obviously to be limited to individual members. Is the idea then that composers should attack RiksTV, as TONO did – or other large, preferably global players, all alone? We need a 'low-threshold offer', like the Danish Copyright Board, where our sister society KODA can resolve disputes more efficiently. Here, cases are decided in a single instance, in contrast to our ordinary court proceedings through three instances.
Buy-outs, where composers are pressured to sell all rights in order to secure commissions, for example from film streaming services, are now a topic of discussion in the EU. Culture ministers are discussing the working conditions of cultural workers across Europe, and legislation is needed to protect creators in this area across the EU. Buy-outs are growing and are deeply problematic for the creative sector in Europe.
When Norway implements the DSM Directive in the Copyright Act, it is important that it does not provide for too broad exceptions to copyright, especially within the provisions on text and data mining in Articles 3 and 4, which provide for exceptions to the author's exclusive right to make copies. . This could be exploited by technology companies to train artificial intelligence on copyrighted material without asking for permission or paying for it, and without the rightholders being given the opportunity to make reservations in an appropriate manner. This depends on the Ministry implementing these provisions correctly.
We also emphasize that TONO is available to the Music Committee if you would like information and data that we have.
We thank you for the opportunity to provide our input.