TONO's appeal rejected:
(Oslo, June 12, 2023) The Supreme Court announced today that TONO's appeal in the case with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra has been rejected. – We are satisfied that the Supreme Court has determined that TONO has the freedom to decide how the remuneration should be determined and how high it should be, says CEO of TONO, Karl Vestli.
/ 12/06/2023 / Willy MartinsenThe Supreme Court today announced its verdict in the case between the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and TONO. TONO's appeal was rejected, and it has been ordered to pay legal costs to the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra on kr 689,312.
In its assessment, the Supreme Court concluded that TONO's license terms to the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra do not meet the requirements for objective and non-discriminatory criteria in Section 28 of the Collective Management Act.
– We agree with the Supreme Court that our tariff towards the Oslo Philharmonic cannot apply to them alone, and that was never our intention. Ideally, we would of course have liked to have won the case, but even if our appeal was rejected, we still experience the verdict as half a victory. The Supreme Court does not exclude that state subsidies can be used as a basis for remuneration, and has determined that TONO, within the framework of the law, has the freedom to decide how the remuneration should be determined and how high it should be, says CEO of TONO, Karl Vestli.
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether government subsidies can be taken into account in the license terms. This issue therefore remains an open question.
– It has been a desire for TONO to gain clarity on whether we can take government subsidies into account in the calculation of remuneration where it is reasonable. "When the Supreme Court does not take a position on this in its judgment, we will consider how public subsidies should be taken into account in the concert tariff to ensure reasonable remuneration for composers, lyricists and music publishers in line with the economic commercial value of the works," says Vestli.
TONO was founded in 1928 and is a non-profit cooperative owned and managed by composers, lyricists and music publishers, and which manages the economic copyrights in their musical works. TONO grants permission for the use of protected music on radio, TV, the internet, concerts, cinema, etc. for a fee, and transfers its financial results each year to the rights holders of music that has been performed publicly. TONO has more than 40,000 members, but also works for millions of authors and music publishers from around the world. TONO gives music creators an economic basis to create new music, and collects and simplifies the licensing of protected music to music users. TONO had a turnover of NOK 864,6 million in 2022.
Karl Vestli, CEO of TONO, mob. 932 56 020, karl.vestli (a) tono.no
Willy Martinsen, Communications Director at TONO, mobile 909 65,254, willy.martinsen (a) tono.no
Photo: NTB