EUR 8.5 million distributed to composers, lyricist and music publishers in March

We paid March’s distribution to our rightholder customers on 19 March 2020. Of this sum, EUR 3.5 million was paid to Finnish composers, lyricists, arrangers and music publishers and the rest will be paid to foreign music authors whose music has been performed in Finland. These distributions have accrued from the performances in 2019, which means that the current coronavirus situation has not affected them.  

Most of the distributed royalties are for music that was used in radio, television, as background music, in online and streaming services and by Yle Areena in July, August and September 2019. Some of the royalties are royalties collected from abroad and royalties that Teosto has not been able to pay earlier, such as due to missing work notifications.

We collect the copyright royalties from public performances and copying of domestic and foreign music and distribute them to the rightholders of the music.

The royalties distributed in March were accumulated from the following music use areas (so-called categories of rights):

You can find more information about the distributions from the Members section.

The amount paid to an individual creator depends on how many times the work has been performed and the creator’s share of the royalty to be paid for the work. The amount varies between a couple of euros and thousands of euros.

The amount distributed by Teosto varies also depending on how comprehensively royalties are collected in each music use area. Teosto continually seeks to accelerate royalty collection so that royalties can be distributed to music authors as soon as possible after the performance.

Teosto distributes royalties to its member composers, lyricists and publishers four times a year. The next distribution will be paid in June 2020.

Teosto will provide service during the coronavirus situation

Due to the coronavirus situation, we are currently working remotely, but we will continue to serve our customers over the phone, by e-mail and through the chat service on our website during our customer service’s opening hours. Our web service is available to our customers 24/7. In our web service, you can submit work and performance notifications and report event information, among other things.

Teosto and our international partner organisations are collecting music use royalties and preparing future distributions as usual. The coronavirus situation will not affect the distributions to be paid in June 2020; possible impacts will be visible in later distributions.

We are currently considering how we could help our customers cope with the changes caused by this coronavirus situation.